Publication patterns: Enumeration labels

An enumeration label can be used to add any numbering (e.g. volume and issue numbers) or sequential labelling (such as seasons or semester names) to serial issues.

A single publication can have multiple enumeration labels to cover cases where there are multiple ways of numbering or labelling each issue. For example if a quarterly publication were to be both numbered (1-4) and labelled by season (Spring-Winter) then two enumeration labels would be needed.

Enumeration labels can be one of two formats:

• Enumeration Numeric -> used where issues are allocated numbers

• Enumeration Textual -> used where issues are labelled with some sequential set of text values

Numeric Enumeration

Numeric enumerations can have multiple levels to handle concepts such as volume and issue numbering where the volume number may increase only once a year, but the issue number is increased every issue. For each level of enumeration you define you will need to specify:

• No. of units -> in the case of a sequence that has Sequence = Reset this is the number of issues published before the sequence resets. It is also the number of issues published before the next level of enumeration up increases.

• Format -> What style of numbering is used. Options are:

  • Number (1, 2, 3) → cardinal numbering

  • Ordinal (1st, 2nd, 3rd) → ordinal numbering

  • Roman numerals (I, II, III) → numbering with roman numerals

• Sequence → whether the numbering sequence is continuous (keeps going up and up) or resets (following the publication of the number of issues specified in No. of units

• Internal note → this is an optional text field for notes, it does not affect the enumeration process and is not required but can be useful for remembering what different parts of the enumeration label represent (e.g. volume, issue number, etc.)

Enumeration levels relate to each other in terms of how they change as issues are published - this is controlled through the No. of unit and the Sequence settings for the level. As many levels of enumeration can be added as necessary, although having more than 2 levels (volume/issue) is unusual.

If Level 1 is Continuous then the No. of units can be set to 1. If no further levels are defined in the label then this will result in the issues being numbered sequentially, increasing by one every issue. If a Level 2 enumeration is defined in the same label, then the Level 1 number will increase by one based on the No. of units specified for Level 2. This pattern continues as you add more levels to the label. To give some concrete examples:

For a monthly publication which has volume and issue numbers, with the volume number increasing each year, and the issue numbers going from 1-12 each year, the enumeration label would look like this:

Open

For a monthly publication which has volume and issue numbers but publishing two volumes of six issues a year (i.e. the volume number increases every six months, and the issue numbers going from 1-6 within volume, the enumeration label would look like this:

Open

For a weekly publication which has volume, part and issue numbers, each year publishing 1 volume containing 4 parts (1-4) and each part containing 13 issues (1-3) the enumeration label would look like:

Textual enumeration

Textual enumerations do not have levels, unlike numeric enumerations. Instead for a textual enumeration you add a list of values that should be used to label the issues in sequence. For a textual enumeration you will need to select a Pick list, also called a Refdata (reference data) category, which will be the source of all the labels to be used for issues. New pick lists can be added in the Serial settings.

Once a pick list has been selected, then values from the list can be added in the order they should be used. For each value to be used the following options need to be set:

• No. of units -> the number of issues in a row that should be labelled using this value

• Label text → the value from the pick list that is to be used

• Internal note → this is an optional text field for notes, it does not affect the enumeration process and is not required but can be useful for remembering what different parts of the enumeration label represent

To give a practical example, a quarterly publication which is labelled by season: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter would first need a “Season” pick list setup with the four values in (this is done in Settings → Serials) and then the Enumeration label would be setup as follows: