Hard and fast criteria for making the decision to classify a monographic series together under a topical class number do not exist. The following can only be seen as guidelines for making this decision at the Queen Elizabeth II Library, especially in the absence of a subject specialist who can tell the cataloguer how a particular series is approached by practitioners within the discipline.

In general, class as separates those titles falling within the following types of monographic series:

• Unnumbered series
• Series where most titles focus on socio-economic conditions in different geographical areas
• Series where an examination of titles within the series reveals totally unrelated subject content from one member title to another
• Series where CIP, or other national source copy, provides separate call numbers for each title
• Series where our holdings are extremely spotty

In general, class together monographic series where:

• The DLC uniform title authority record classifies the series together. Check the 646 to ensure that LC's policy has not changed over time
• An examination of available copy for titles within the series reveals a series call number or a very narrow range of call numbers
• A Collections Librarian or other subject specialist has noted that researchers in the discipline would expect to find the series together
• Similar series from the same agency (especially governmental or IGO) are already classed together
• Classification policy at branch libraries, particularly MARINE and CNS, keeps the series together
• Our holdings are more or less complete, or at least significant

There are a number of places where one can go to determine series classification policies and/or class numbers at other institutions. While the LC NAF is the most logical place to start, the serial format record for the series, found either in a title or ISSN search, can be useful in coming up with a class number, as can series title searches where these are enabled in the remote OPAC. Look in the 050, 055 and 090 for series call number.

First mounted: 14 November 1997
Last revised: 14 November 1997
Document author: Charley Pennell