Series Entries in Alexandria Demystified

Making a series entry used to be so easy  — just fill in the Series field in the item record and Alexandria would store the information in the 440 tag.   Then, Library of Congress modified the tag to include a number of non-filing characters.  In the last few years, things have gotten more complicated, but, never fear, Alexandria has adapted to the changes and made it still very easy for you!

Library of Congress has declared the 440 tag to be obsolete and now uses the 490 tag instead; however, this field is tied to an 8xx tag (800 Personal Name Series Added Entry, 810 Corporate Name Series Added Entry, 811 Meeting Name Series Added Entry, or 830 Uniform Title Series Added Entry) and Alexandria is designed to handle this, too.   Alexandria automatically makes an 830 Series tag as well as the 490 tag with the information that you enter in the Series field.  For many series, this will be quite sufficient.

In the Series field of the Item record, there is an Action menu icon (gear).  This menu provides two options  — Non-filing characters and Open Series Editor.  Using the Series field and these two options correctly is critical for making Series searches in the Researcher perform correctly.

First, let's look at the proper way to enter a series and to set the number of non-filing characters.  If you were entering the series, The Hunger Games in the series field, you would enter it complete with the initial article, "The."  Then, you would click on the Action menu icon and select Non-filing characters and click on 4.  The number of non-filing characters that you select is based upon the number of letters in the initial article plus 1 for the space (i.e. a  — 2, an  — 3, the  — 4).  Because all of this works together, if the initial article is entered in the Series field, but the Non-filing characters is incorrectly set to 0, then the series will be indexed in the "T's" and not by the word which follows the initial article.  On the other hand, if the initial article is omitted and the Non-filing characters is set to 4, Alexandria will skip the first four characters of the word (or word and spaces) that you have entered in the Series field.  In the example of The Hunger Games, if the Non-filing characters was set to 4 and the initial article was omitted, then Alexandria would skip H-u-n-g and would index the series starting with the "e."  I can just hear many of you saying, "Of course  — Duh!"  But, as obvious as it seems, this is one of the main problems that we see when series searches are not yielding the expected results.

Now, let's deal with the series numbers.  Your patrons will love you if you enter the series' number so that they can read them in order or find the latest book in the series.  If you know how to use the correct spacing and punctuation (<space> ; <space>}, then you may enter the series volume or number right in the Series field (i.e. The Hunger Games ; bk. 3).  For those of us who take the easy way out (and so we don't do things incorrectly), the Series Editor is the answer.

Let's go back to our example of The Hunger Games. If you had cataloged Mockingjay which is number 3 in the series, you would perform the following steps:

• Enter The Hunger Games in the Series field.

• Click on the Action menu icon in the Series field and select Non-filing characters and click on 4. 

• Click on the Action menu icon again and select Open Series Editor. 

• With the Series Editor open.  Highlight the series' name in the 490 _a field and, then, click on the a (Add field) icon on the left side of the Series Editor.  This opens the Fields window.

           

• From the drop-down menu, select V and click on OK.

• Enter the volume / book number as it is indicated in the item.

• If you have Authority Control turned on, you may be asked to pick the series from the Series Authority list or Add it to the list.

• Click on OK.

• Continue cataloging as usual.

That's all there is to it.  Luckily, for most of us, MARC Search will yield an item record that already contains the series information including the volume number correctly entered.

Now, let's take a look at how this affects the search results in Alexandria's Researcher.  When you search for a series that is numbered and get the results for the search, you may then click on the Sort by drop-down menu at the top of the search window and select Series.  Because you have volume numbers entered in the _v field, the series will sort in numeric order based upon the entry in the _v field.   So, a word of caution  — Be consistent in the way you enter the series and the way you enter the information in the _v field.  For instance, don't enter bk. 3 in one record, but only 2 in another.  Alexandria can only work with what you give it.  Consistency is the key here.

Now, this may be more than ever wanted to know about the Series tags and fields, but it may enable you to troubleshoot series problems you may encounter in your own records.  You will now be able to ask yourself the following questions:

• Is the series title entry consistent for all items in the series?

• Is the Non-filing characters entry for each item in the series set correctly?

• Has the volume/book field been used correctly or has the correct punctuation and spacing used if the Series Editor was not used?

Is there consistency in the way the entries in the _v field have been entered?