Overview of Basic Serials Records

The serial titles that you catalog and process through Horizon have these records:

Bib record. You create a bib record for the title in Cataloging. This bib record must exist before you can create the remaining records.
Copy record. You create a copy record that represents a group of issues (which constitutes a serial “run”), and that you want Horizon to display separately in the summary of holdings. As a general definition, you create one copy record for each subscription your library has of a title. (For example, a single library location may receive two copies of Sports Illustrated: one for the juvenile collection and one for the adult reference collection. The location may also receive a third copy in electronic version on CD-ROM, from an Internet subscription, or as microfilm. This library location would have three copy records for this title: one copy record for each collection and one for the electronic version.) Serials uses the information from copy records to predict arrival of issues, assign routings, and manage holdings display.

When you create a copy record with a new media type for the same title, Horizon assigns a new serial number to the copy record. This serial number represents that particular title and media type combination. This function lets copies with the same media type share the same prediction information.

Issue record. Horizon creates an issue record for you at prediction using the prediction information tied to a particular serial number. (A serial number represents one or more copy records with the same title and media type, and therefore, share prediction information.) You can also create an issue record manually. An issue record is a representation of a single issue for a title of a particular media type. However, an issue record does not represent the instance of an issue that your library either expects or has received for a particular copy of a title.

For example, an issue record could represent the June 2003 issue of Reader’s Digest for the magazine media type. The microfilm version of the June 2003 issue would have a different issue record. No matter how many copies of each media type the library has, Horizon still has only two issue records to represent the issue information for each media type of the June 2003 issue of Reader’s Digest.

Copy Issue record. Horizon creates a copy issue record for you automatically at either of these times: when you manually create the issue record or when you start Horizon prediction. A copy issue record represents a single copy of an issue that your library either expects or has received for a particular title and media type. Horizon stores the serials status (such as, “Expected,” “Received,” or “Being Claimed”) on this record.

Copy issue records do not appear in PAC and staff searching screens unless they also have a corresponding item record. However, you could think of a copy issue record as a serial item record—a representation of a copy of an issue that your library expects or has received for a copy (or subscription) of a title.

Item record (optional). If you specify automatic item creation on a copy record, Horizon automatically creates an item record for each received copy issue. When you receive a copy issue, Horizon creates an item record for the copy issue in Cataloging, which lets Horizon put the received item under circulation control. If you create item records for copy issues, then staff and borrowers can search for serial items in your PAC or staff searching.

If you map serial information on a spreadsheet, you can see the different Horizon records and their relationships:

 

Here is a diagram of the different records with some brief information as to their relationships:

 

 


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