I'm a little out of my element here as I'm usually only cataloging
serials that are primarily textual in nature (perhaps with
accompanying visual or sound material), but I've been asked to
catalog the freely available web radio archive of "This American
Life" for our library and I'm not sure whether a serial record is
really appropriate. By appropriate, I mean according to CONSER since
we always try to follow CONSER policy -- that is, when we don't
deviate ;-)
The whole Website (http://www.thisamericanlife.org/) could be done
as an integrating resource, and I'd be comfortable doing that since
overall it is text based with the added sound and video files.
However, it is really the Radio Archive
(http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives) that we want, and
that walks and talks like a serial, e.g. numbered, in successive
parts, on-going. As I can find no mention in CCM of how to deal
with spoken word other than as accompanying material, I'm hoping
some CONSER librarian here could provide a little advice. Have
radio shows mostly been done as monographs by season or subject just
because that's how they've come out on physical carriers, and are
Web archives a more accurate representation of their true serial
nature, or am I wrong that they are in essence serials?