[Koha] Serial Pattern Assistance (Results to be published in the manual)

Tue Aug 19 23:10:53 NZST 2014

  Hello Nicole,

I know you had some long pending requests around serials documentation, 
here is how i would do it. Hope this helps! (Answers directly in the 
message)

Le 28/07/2014 17:42, Nicole Engard a écrit :
> As always I'll share tips with the community in the manual in a section
> that credits you.  Here are the patterns I'm looking for:
>
> *Annals of internal medicine*
>
> Has 24 issues per year (published 2 times a month) with the volume changing
> (rolling over) in the 1st week of July
>
>
> Vol 161, No 2    July 15, 2014
> Vol 161, No 1    July 1, 2014
> Vol 160, No 12  June 17, 2014
> Vol 160, No 11  June 3, 2014

There is something not clear here : either the volume changes twice a 
year in July and January, and the June issues have number 11 and 12, or 
it's changing only once in July, and these issues should have number 23 
and 24. I'll start with the later scenario.

Set up a bi-monthly frequency (two issues per month) if you don't 
already have one. (This means koha will generate two issues for July, 
and both will have the 1st of July as their planned published date. If 
you set it up so that it's once every two weeks, it will gradually shift 
and wouldn't fit the twice a month schedule, since you would have 26 
issues a year instead of 24. That's a limitation i don't know how to 
work around for now. I guess you are not surprised to read this, but the 
fact the date will be the first of the month for both issues is 
confusing a lot of users.)

Set up a "Volume, Number (one volume every 24 numbers)" numbering 
pattern with the following parameters:
Numbering formula: "Vol{X}, No {Y}"

For X: "Add 1 every 24 set back to 1 when more than 99999"
For Y: "Add 1 every 1 set back to 1 when more than 24" (put labels like 
Volume and number but ignore formatting. I think the only thing the 
label is needed for is to fill the headers of the table when setting up 
your subscription later.)

When setting up your subscription, you will have to chose the inner 
counter depending on your subscription's first issue publication date 
(the date of the first serial you will receive).
Say this first serial is the one for the first half of January, pick the 
1st of January as the first issue publication date, its number should be 
"Vol 160, No 13", so let's put this in the "begin with" row of the table 
in the Volume and Number columns.
Now to the inner counter...
The number will know when to roll over, that's when it's more than 24. 
It will go back to one after reaching this value, there is nothing to 
put in the inner counter here. (This works with the "when more than" 
line of the numbering pattern setup.)
But the volume is set to increment every 24 numbers, starting in the 
middle of the year. If we leave it empty, it will roll over after 24 
serials have been generated, next January. We have to take into account 
the fact that, on the first of January, 12 numbers have already been 
issued for this volume. Set the inner counter for the volume to 12: the 
volume number should now increment on the first issue of July.
If the first issue publication date is the 1st of july, you don't need 
to set the inner counter. The volume will increment after receiving 24 
numbers.

If you have two rollovers a year, that is one volume every six months 
(12 issues):
Choose the same bi-monthly frequency.
Set up a "Volume, Number (one volume every 12 numbers)" numbering 
pattern with the following parameters:
Numbering formula: "Vol{X}, No {Y}"

For X: "Add 1 every 12 set back to 1 when more than 99999"
For Y: "Add 1 every 1 set back to 1 when more than 12"

Now, if your first issue publication date is either the first of January 
or the first of July, you will not need to fill the inner counter for 
volume.
But say your first issue is the one of the second half of March, well 
then, you will run into the current limitation i was talking about 
earlier: if you set up the first issue publication date on the 16th of 
March for number 6, Koha will create number 7 with the publication date 
being the 16th of March as well. This is because we have a bi-monthly 
frequency and we have no way of telling Koha our first issue is the one 
for the second half of the month. (Somehow, after this all the issues 
will be for the first day of the month.) So in this situation you have 
to start with an issue with an odd number.
So if we pick number 5 for the first half of March, we need to set the 
inner counter for the volume at 4 to take into account the previous 
numbers in the volume. The volume will then correctly roll over in 
January and July.

>
> *Scientific American*
>
> Has 12 issues per year (published once a month) with volume rolling over in
> the middle of the year, July
>
> Vol 311, issue 2, August, 2014
> Vol 311, issue 1, July 2014
> Vol 310, issue 6, June 2014
> Vol 310, issue 5, May 2014

Same question here : shouldn't the issue number for June be 12 if the 
volume number rolls over only once a year?

If we have 12 issues per volume, and one volume per year:
Here you need a monthly frequency, and you can reuse the "Volume, Number 
(one volume every 12 numbers)" numbering pattern we just set up, maybe 
duplicate it so that you can change the numbering formula to have 
"issue" instead of "No".

You will not need to set up the inner counter for the issue, only for 
the volume like before.
If the first issue you are receiving is the June one, the begin with row 
will have volume 310, issue 12, and the inner counter row will have 11 
for volume, to take into account the previous numbers in this volume.

If we have 6 issues per volume, and 2 volumes per year:
We will still use the monthly frequency, but we will need to setup a 
"Volume, Number (one volume every 6 numbers)" numbering pattern like this:
Numbering formula: "Vol{X}, No {Y}"

For X: "Add 1 every 6 set back to 1 when more than 99999"
For Y: "Add 1 every 1 set back to 1 when more than 6"

As before if your first issue publication date is the first of January 
or the first of July, you will not need to put anything in the inner 
counter.

If your first issue is the one for May, it will have volume 310, issue 
5, with the inner counter for volume at 4.

>
> *Time Magazine*
>
> It's published weekly, with the volume rolling over at the first week of
> July
>
> Vol 184, No 3 July 21, 2014
> Vol 184, No 2 July 14, 2014
> Vol 184, No 1 7/7/14
> Vol 183, No 25 6/30/14
> Vol 183, No 24 6/23/14

So it is also rolling over twice a year? Does it also have 
irregularities? This one looks like a nightmare quite frankly!

I am not too sure about this one because "the first week of July" is 
more complicated than it seems. It's fairly easy to say that the volume 
will roll over after 26 issues, but i don't know if the first week of 
July always is week 27. (This is still not so great because a year 
doesn't have exactly 52 weeks. That will always be a problem with weekly 
frequencies though. Koha doesn't support having a volume number that 
changes at a given time, only after a given amount of serials generated. 
This is a problem for a number of serials.)

For 52 issues per volume and one volume a year with volume changing at 
week 27 (so mid year):

Set up a "once per week" frequency if you don't already have one.
Set up a "Volume, Number (52 issues per volume)" numbering pattern. like 
this:
Numbering formula: "Vol{X}, No {Y}"

For X: "Add 1 every 52 set back to 1 when more than 99999"
For Y: "Add 1 every 1 set back to 1 when more than 52"

Same as always, the inner counter for volume will be number of the next 
issue -1, so if we start with the fifth issue "vol 183, No 5" the inner 
counter will be 4.

For 26 issues per volume and two volumes per year, rolling over twice a 
year, you will need a "Volume, Number (26 issues per volume)" numbering 
pattern. like this:
Numbering formula: "Vol{X}, No {Y}"

For X: "Add 1 every 26 set back to 1 when more than 99999"
For Y: "Add 1 every 1 set back to 1 when more than 26"

And as always, you will have to take into account in the inner counter 
the previous issues for  the current volume. so Vol 183, No 24 from the 
23rd of june will need the volume inner counter to be set at 23.

So... If you only have to substract one from the next issue value to get 
the inner counter, why isn't this hidden and automatic?

Because we could have a more complicated numbering pattern with yet 
another value. What we are counting in the inner counter is not the 
number of issues or numbers in the volume, but the number of "ticks" of 
the wicked great old serial clock (tentacles not included). The numbers 
of serials generated for a volume if you prefer, the correlation to the 
actual issue numbers is not direct. If you had something like Volume 
145, Issue 3, number 2, with four numbers to make an issue and 3 issues 
to make a volume, you would need to set up an inner counter for issue, 
and another for volume. The value in the inner counter reflects how 
close you get to the "every" value of the numbering pattern table, one 
volume every 12 ticks of the clock in this example, so the volume clock 
has already ticked 9 times when you reach Volume 145, Issue 3, number 2, 
because it ticks for every serial generated and the smaller issue clock 
has ticked once (because it gets resetted more often than the large 
volume one), and will need to tick twice more for the issue number to 
roll over. Inner counter for volume would be 9, for issue it would be 1 
and the begin with row would be : 145, 3, 2.

Pheww. Serials are evil.

> Thank you so very very much in advance!
> Nicole
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