ABSTRACT
Periodical literature refers to magazines or other publications normally issued on a regular basis. The librarian’s term serial extends this definition to publications that intend to continue indefinitely and thus have a designation indicating the volume and/or date of the issue. Libraries frequently provide statistics on the number of serials in their collection, either in current subscriptions or bound periodical volumes. The availability of the former is important if you are searching for a recent article and the latter if you are doing retrospective research. Sometimes these statistics are provided at the library’s Web site.
