What categories exist for publication types?

October 2, 2009 8:31 AM

What type of publication has around 20 pages?

I am organizing a collection of publications and I want to arrange them by publication type, i.e., newsletters, journals, broadsides, etc. I do not know which category to place items that are longer than newsletters but not long enough to be considered journals or magazines. I am further stumped by one item that consists entirely of reprints from a journal.

posted by ergibson to education (18 comments total)

A comic book.
posted by Nanukthedog at 8:32 AM on October 2

Commuter papers (the Express and the Examiner in DC are around 20 pages, and I think Metro in NYC is about the same)
posted by downing street memo at 8:35 AM on October 2

The items I am thinking of document strikes in the 60's and 70's.
posted by ergibson at 8:38 AM on October 2

For what it's worth, I get plenty of newsletters of that length - mostly from the council and local groups. Newsletter has a vague, non-format description though, with Wikipedia even claiming newspapers are newsletters. So, if it were me, I'd stretch the newsletter description to count publications of this size.

I suspect there'll be some of MeFi's native librarians out in force to give a more authoritative answer soon though!
posted by wackybrit at 8:39 AM on October 2

I am further stumped by one item that consists entirely of reprints from a journal.

If it was prepared for a college class or lab group, we might call it "a class reader". It's usually prepared by a library or bookstore from photocopies or clippings.

If it's professionally-published as a stand-alone mini-journal, and all the articles are on the same topic, we might call it a review journal.
posted by muddgirl at 8:40 AM on October 2

Are you looking for a name? A small book with several folded pages and a simple cover, stapled together, is a pamphlet.
posted by fire&wings at 8:40 AM on October 2

I don't think magazine denotes any particular minimum number of pages.
posted by rokusan at 8:40 AM on October 2

Pamphlets and leaflets are also categories of books-without-covers, usually just saddle-stitched at the fold.
posted by rokusan at 8:41 AM on October 2

Wikipedia on pamphlets -

A pamphlet is an unbound booklet (that is, without a hard cover or binding). It may consist of a single sheet of paper that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths (called a leaflet), or it may consist of a few pages that are folded in half and stapled at the crease to make a simple book. In order to count as a pamphlet, UNESCO requires a publication (other than a periodical) to have 'at least 5 but not more than 48 pages exclusive of the cover pages'[1]; a longer item is a book.

So it covers rather a lot, but sounds like what you are looking for.
posted by fire&wings at 8:45 AM on October 2

I am further stumped by one item that consists entirely of reprints from a journal.

This sounds like an offprint, technically speaking this applies to any article taken from a larger body of work and printed individually but it is most commonly applied to copies of single academic journal articles which are printed independent of the larger collection. In ye olden days if one got an article published in an academic journal one got a stack of copies of said article (free or ordered) to send to ones academic chums. These days its an e-offprint naturally.
posted by biffa at 8:47 AM on October 2

Monograph?
posted by Wordwoman at 8:51 AM on October 2

Pamphlet is the first thing I thought of.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 9:43 AM on October 2

Pamphlets are often classified as ephemera, which has a much cooler ring to it.

Ephemera is transitory written and printed matter not intended to be retained or preserved, though here you go preserving it.
posted by pseudonick at 11:18 AM on October 2

I'm volunteering at an archive, doing some processing... preserving and creating access to documents of enduring value. I really appreciate the list of publication types generated here.

Here's what you've given me so far:

Class Reader: prepared for a college class or lab group, usually prepared by a library or bookstore from photocopies or clippings.
Comic book
Commuter papers: consist of about 20 pages, i.e., the Express and the Examiner in DC, Metro in NYC
Newsletters: a vague, non-format description though, with Wikipedia even claiming newspapers are newsletters.
Offprints: can refer to any article taken from a larger body of work and printed individually but most commonly applied to copies of single academic journal articles which are printed independent of the larger collection.
Pamphlet: an unbound booklet (that is, without a hard cover or binding). It may consist of a single sheet of paper that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths (called a leaflet), or it may consist of a few pages that are folded in half and stapled at the crease to make a simple book. In order to count as a pamphlet, UNESCO requires a publication (other than a periodical) to have 'at least 5 but not more than 48 pages exclusive of the cover pages'[1]; a longer item is a book (Wikipedia).
Review Journal: professionally-published as a stand-alone mini-journal, all the articles on the same topic.
posted by ergibson at 11:39 AM on October 2

Well, I sort of made up the concept of a review journal. Does it even exist?

I think you need to classify things not by length, but by content. If it contains journal articles in a journal format, it's a journal. If it's self-published in B&W at kinkos, it's a zine. And so on.
posted by muddgirl at 11:49 AM on October 2

I think you need to classify things not by length, but by content

I hear ya... content has already been taken care of. I'm creating an inventory of publication titles, and I want to organize the titles into groups according to the type of publication they came from. My goal is to optimize researcher access. So... if you were looking for publications by or about a specific labor union during the 60s and 70s, how would you look for them?
posted by ergibson at 12:15 PM on October 2

muddgirl, I should clarify, or correct myself as the case may be... subject has been taken care of, not content. Classifying according to content is tricky because newspapers, newsletters, pamphlets all contain very similar content, i.e., news articles and advertisements. What I've done so far is concentrate on who the intended reader was, i.e., newsletters are intended for a more specific audience than pamphlets, etc.
posted by ergibson at 12:22 PM on October 2

I guess what I was trying to say is that it seems like you are mostly trying to sort publications by publisher intent and format, but then you throw in an arbitrary length criteria... "it's longer than a newsletter but shorter than a magazine." To me, a newsletter and magazine are separated by lots of characteristics, not just by length.

One category missing from your list: trade journals.
posted by muddgirl at 1:39 PM on October 2