Technical Introduction

HIS CATALOG DEFINES the statistical characteristics of the American Periodical Col- lection as currently housed in the Library of the Supreme Council, 33°, Southern Jurisdiction, in Washington D.C. At present, the collection contains 674 titles of various types of Masonic periodicals, bound into 2,194 volumes, containing 70,959 individual issues. The complete collection of periodical literature is arranged in alphabetic order, independent of the type and place of publication. Each bibliographic description consists of several data fields that are standard for the individual printed editions. Problematic questions and peculiarities of individual periodicals are treated in annotations or dealt with in specific elements of description.

Title of Periodical Publication. The title of each magazine is presented in exact correspondence with its cover or masthead. All changes in title are noted in the analytical part of the description. In the case of a few issues having identical titles, the order of arrangement is by state.

Peculiarities. The overwhelming majority of magazines in this collection are bound into volumes without cover pages. (The cover pages were removed, and we have no explanation for that sad fact.) The masthead remaining on the first page frequently does not correspond to the running tide (due to the tendency to drop adjectives.) but in existing catalogs, periodicals are often described in free style, and thus do not necessarily serve as a reliable source of information. Thus, the decision concerning how to describe any non-conforming or contradictory publication was taken individually and generally conforms to the supplied tide and practical objectives of periodical usage rather than a strictly academic approach of library science. This catalog does not provide traditional reference information about publication. In cases where the publication changed its tide, each new tide is provided in the catalog in alphabetic order with a pointer to the analogous field of its successor.

Type of Publication. The type of publication follows after the tide and is shown in brackets. It is determined by the subjective opinion of the bibliographer.

Peculiarities. Notwithstanding the existing conventions that define rules and standards for serials publications, as concerns Masonic periodicals, it is very difficult to stay within those constraints. The initial decision for determining which type category a given publication might fall into was initially made by the editor or the editorial staff. Desiring to give esteem to that initial consideration, this catalog uses the convention that was first applied to the publication. Exceptions include those circumstances where the pronouncement in the title does not correspond to reality. If a publication, at some stage of its existence changes its type of publication, this change is noted in an analogous part of the description.

Place of Publication. City and state of publication is presented in the next sequential field after type of publication.

Peculiarities. In a number of cases, information on the masthead of periodicals publications creates difficulties in determining the place of publication. This is particularly true of national publications when the president of the editorial board is located in one state, the members in another, and the actual place of publication is in a third. In such circumstances, a decision about how to indicate place of publication is made on an individual basis. All subsequent changes in place of publication are listed in analogous information sections. If a local periodical was published initially in one state and afterwards, for whatever reason, changes its registered address, that issue will be described as if it were a new one, belonging to a different state.

Publisher or Publishing House. The publisher and publishing house are described in correspondence with data provided on the masthead. The information is presented in brackets if the information about that descriptive field is located in a different place in the publication.

Chronology. Chronology is indicated so as to correspond with dates on the bound volumes located in the library. (No attempt was made to determine the date it began or ceased publication nor to include such information, even if available.) Physical Description. The bibliographic description is presented as the physical characteristics of the first edition from which the file begins. All changes in format from that point are described without exception. Any subsequent changes in page volume, if significant, will be described in the analytical description.

Peculiarities. It is virtually impossible to observe all changes in the physical description of a large number of periodicals as it is not uncommon to see wide variations in the number of pages from issue to issue. Substantial variations in number of pages of a publication are given in brackets directly following the volume number.

Analytic Description. The analytic description includes all data about the periodicity pro- vided in the Masthead and (if available) information about whose organ it is. Any information concerning the objectives of the publication are next set forth. Further, consistent with the masthead data, the name of the editor/managing editor/president of the publication/business manager is presented in the body of the text, or on a separate line. Then, in chronological order, details are provided on changes in any of the above mentioned fields.

Availability of Publication in the Library and Numeration. Information about availability and numeration is presented in the following order: year in which the publication first appeared in the library; volume (always in Roman numerals - with the exception of a case where numeration may be absent); and issue (always in Arabic numerals-with the exception of situations where information about issues is absent.)

Peculiarities. Mistaken numeration involving volumes and issues of periodical publications is the most commonly encountered mistake. This problem is sometimes mentioned by the editor and at other times not. Most commonly this error accompanies a change in periodicity of the publication. In situations of confusing or incorrect numeration, and in order to assist the reader in using the catalog, immediately following the issue number, the catalog shows month/year and number of the issue.

Self-Introduction. The citations set forth in the catalog were excerpted directly from a selected volume of each edition. The information in this field is set forth as originally prepared by the editor, and employs two types of presentation: (I) an appeal directly to the reader, with a pronouncement of the goals and tasks the publication was assuming, and (2) a philosophic or his- toric generalization of the principles and contribution of the Masonic Fraternity to society. Both types of self-introduction were completely subjective selections made by the compiler, and do not presume a knowledge of the subject.

Illustrations. Illustrations for 19th-century publications were prepared using the best pre- served copies of each individual publication. For 20th-century publications, a selective approach was employed to use those issues that could be most easily photocopied, or, were available in other convenient media.

Index. The catalog is accompanied with four indices. (I) TITLES in alphabetic order (2) EDI- TORS/PUBLISHERS in alphabetic order (3) PLACE OF PUBLICATION in alphabetic order and (4) YEARS OF PUBLICATION. This approach permits researchers to quickly and easily orient them- selves for various kinds of inquiries.