From Merriam-Webster's Dictionary:
Main Entry: serial Function: noun Date: 1846
a publication (as a newspaper or journal) issued as one of a consecutively numbered and indefinitely continued series
From the Oxford English Dictionary:
Periodical
1. A magazine or miscellany, the successive numbers of which are published at regular intervals (as weekly, monthly, etc.). Not applied to a book published in parts, nor usually to a daily, weekly, or monthly newspaper.
Members of the Serials Department work with print and online newspapers, magazines, journals, yearbooks, annual reports, microfilm, and other serial or periodical publications (please see definitions above). They are responsible for all aspects of obtaining, organizing, and maintaining all of the material the libraries acquire through subscriptions. This includes finding information about publications so that they can be ordered for the libraries' collection, ordering new publications, and receiving and cataloging new publications. They contribute the details of what the Grinnell College Libraries own to WorldCat/OCLC, a national library database, so that it is possible for other libraries and library users to know what we have and to borrow our materials through interlibrary loan. Members of the serials department arrange for the binding and repair of all serials that require these treatments. They also make sure that these items get to the right places.
Please see our Where Is? page for information on the locations of all of these serial formats.
Nancy Cadmus, Library Assistant, x3361
Kathleen Peterson, Library Assistant, x3361
Doris Selix, Library Assistant, x3361
Rebecca Stuhr, Collection Development Librarian, x3674
