During the 1980's the CONSER Abstracting and Indexing Coverage Project, under the direction of Julia Blixrud, added abstracting and indexing coverage notes (field 510) to CONSER records. For the more popular serials, numerous 510 fields were added when a journal was indexed by many services. In many records the presence of the 510 fields means that additional data cannot be added because the record would excede the maximum number of fields. Furthermore, the data in the 510s is outdated in some cases. While CONSER has affiliate members, such as Chemical Abstracts, which routinely add and update data, the bulk of the maintenance was to be done by the National Serials Data Program at LC and the National Library of Canada. Staffing reductions in both libraries have prevented such maintenance.

A related issue is the presence of ISSN information in A&I services and the role it plays in the "hooks-to-holdings" feature. "Hooks-to-holdings" links a patron from a journal citation in an A&I service to the library's holdings record for that journal. If the correct ISSN is not given in the A&I service, however, the link will not work.

• Is 510 data still useful in CONSER records? Are there alternatives? If this information is useful, how can it be maintained? Are there alternatives for display or storage of such data in CONSER records? If this information is not useful, or cannot be maintained, should it be removed from CONSER records?
• How can we keep A&I services apprised of current ISSN? Are there ways to program the "hooks-to-holdings" feature to make use of the ISSN in links to earlier/later titles?

An interim report is due at ALA Midwinter, January 1998.
The final report is due in time for the CONSER Operations Committee meeting, May 1998.

TASK Force Members Phone/Fax/Email
Cindy Hepfer, chair State University of New York, Buffalo 716-829-2139 fax: 716-829-2211 email: hslcindy@acsu.buffalo.edu	Cecilia Botero University of Florida 352-846-0240 fax: 352-846-2272 email: Cecilia@library.health.ufl.edu
Mike Esman National Agricultural Library 301-504-7565 fax:301-504-5471 email:mesman@nal.usda.gov	Jennifer O'Connell EBSCO Information Services 205-991-1134 fax: 205-995-1586 email: jo'connell@ebsco.com
Kevin McShane National Library of Medicine 301-496-7139 fax: 301-402-1211 email: kevin_mcshane@occshost.nlm.nih.gov	Glenn Patton OCLC, Inc. 800-848-5878 ext. 6371 fax: 614-718-7187 email: pattong@oclc.org
Regina Reynolds Library of Congress 202-707-6379 fax: 202-707-6333 email: rrey@loc.gov	Jean Hirons Library of Congress 202-707-5947 fax:202-707-6333 email: jhir@loc.gov
Ed Jones Systems Analyst Dawson Information Quest 5838 Edison Place Carlsbad, CA 92008 Email: ed@eia.com

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