> A simpler question, though. Leaving aside how this or that future
> model thinks of it, librarians are often ready to quote you the number
> of "titles" in the library. How are they calculating this number? Does
> it differ from when you ask a publisher to do it? I've just never
> known quite what "titles" means to either group, precisely.
It can be quite different because publishers have different needs. The most obvious example is that of the ISBN. In libraries, the rule has always been that paperback "editions" and hardback "editions" are simply copies of one another, while for publishers, this is of vital importance and therefore each gets a different ISBN. This is why there is the rule in LCRI1.0 that if the only change is a different ISBN, it does not constitute a new edition. I would think that variant printings are considered somewhat differently by publishers than by libraries, but I don't know.
Series/serial considerations are another possible problem. One library may handle a certain bibliographic series as a serial (a single title in the catalog with lots of volumes), while another library, or publisher, may consider each separately.
I'm sure there are other possibilities as well, but I can't think of any off the top of my head.
Jiim Weinheimer
Received on Tue Feb 17 2009 - 03:45:56 EST