Discussion of monograph/serial treatment of SPIE and other conference proceedings.

We revisited the policy on serial vs. monograph treatment of proceedings, previously addressed in meetings on June 16 and July 3, 2001. As decided earlier, we will continue to follow LCRI 1.0 "Situations Requiring Further Consideration", 3) Conference publications, as written by LC to determine when to catalog ongoing conference proceedings without distinctive titles as serials and when to catalog as monographs.

Some general guidelines:

• Treat as serials ongoing conference proceedings that have been published for 5 consecutive issues/years with no change of the conference name and title proper if it is entered under the name of the conference and with no change of the title.
• Treat as monographs publications of ongoing conferences that have a title unique to each issue.
• Conferences that are issued as part of a numbered monographic series will be treated as monographs. Exception: Proceedings that fall into this category that we are currently treating as serials. We will continue that treatment.
• All IEEE and ACM proceedings will be treated as monographs.

Library of Congress Rule Interpretations — Chapter 1 General Rules for Description — 1.0. General Rules

Situations Requiring Further Consideration

3) Conference publications:

3) Conference publications. Conference publications typically consist of the minutes, proceedings, etc., of a regularly-held meeting of one or more corporate bodies or are publications that contain the proceedings, etc., of ongoing topical conferences, symposia, or colloquia.

• Catalog as serials ongoing conference publications that are being cataloged for the first time, unless they are covered by the exclusions in paragraph b) below. Consider a conference publication to be "ongoing" if words such as "first" or "annual" appear in conjunction with the name of the conference or the title of the publication or if multiple successive issues show that the publication is continuing in nature.
• Catalog as monographs those conference publications that are not ongoing or that:
  • have a title unique to each issue appearing on the chief source, and/or
  • are issued as part of a numbered monographic series.

Once the decision to catalog as a monograph or as a serial is determined based on the first—or earliest held—issue of a conference publication, prefer to retain that decision. When there is a change in the main entry for a conference publication cataloged as a serial, consider the publication to be "new" and decide whether to catalog it as a monograph or as a serial according to the above criteria.

When CONSER serial records exist for conferences represented by LC monograph records, LC serial catalogers will use "xlc" in the 042 field but will not de-authenticate the records.