Magazines

Each issue is its own record in your library — shelved, lent, labelled and searched like any book — and belongs to its magazine, which holds what every issue shares: the title, publisher, how often it comes out and its ISSN. The issue is told apart by its volume, number and cover date as printed.

1. Open Add a Book, choose "No barcode / vintage", and choose Magazine.
2. Find the magazine by its title, ISSN or barcode. The ISSN is usually printed inside, near the publisher’s address, rather than in the barcode; type it, and if no magazine in the catalogue has it yet, choose "Look up ISSN" to fetch the magazine from the Library of Congress.
3. If it is still not there, choose New magazine and give its title — the ISSN, how often it comes out and the publisher are optional. A new magazine whose ISSN another magazine already has uses that one instead, so each magazine exists once.
4. Type the volume, number and cover date you can see ("Feb 1958"). A date like that is placed on the calendar for you; a season such as "Spring 1972" is kept as written.
5. Add to Library. If your library already holds that issue you are asked whether to add another copy; if another library has catalogued it, your copy joins the same record.

Or scan its barcode from the Scan tab — see Scanning barcodes — and the form opens with the magazine already chosen.

• Magazine barcodes →

A bound volume of several issues is one record: tick "This is a bound volume of several issues" and write what it covers ("v. 113, no. 1–6 (Jan–Jun 1958)"). Its binding — hardcover, library binding — goes in its format, and two copies of the same bound volume are two copies of that one record.

Magazines & gaps (linked from Series & gaps and from Collection insights, and from any issue’s page) lists each magazine your library holds, its issues in order, and the issues missing in between. For a magazine that comes out on a regular schedule and whose issues have dates, a missing month or quarter is marked; otherwise the missing numbers within a volume are. The months a bound volume covers count as held. Only the gap between your earliest and latest issue is shown — it is a fact about your shelves, with nothing to buy attached.

Adding issues is on the website; the phone app adds an issue by scanning the barcode of a magazine the catalogue already knows, and shows issues like any book, with their volume, number and date under the title. A magazine’s title, publisher and how often it comes out follow the usual review path: filling in what was empty applies straight away, changing what is there is queued for review.