On-line periodicals at Hull College of Higher Education

Describes the operation, in a multi-site College library, of an online periodicals control system, developed completely in-house, which replaced an inefficient manual system. Each subscription record holds details of title, alternative title, location code and subject code and is composed of fixed-length fields with acharacter alphanumeric control number. The system is run on a Nord 100. The various fields include those for frequency, issues per volume and price, and each entry may be termed "alive" (On current subscription) or "inactive" where a subscription is discontinued, and further subdivided by category of material.The library records were then converted to machine-readable form and may now be sorted by location, type and subject/department.
The simple accessioning procedures are detailed. The system which went live in January 1981 is proving very efficient in this particular College situation.