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Malacological Journals and Newsletters
Molluscan journals began in the 1770s and many hundreds of such specialized serials have been introduced since. Tracking the often short-lived runs and frequent name changes can be challenging. Catalog and database are provided to facilitate access to this complex body of literature.
[For searches, go to "Collection Search: Search Database," below]
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Molluscan journals began in the 1770s and many hundreds of such specialized serials have been introduced since. Tracking the often short-lived runs and frequent name changes can be challenging. Catalog and database are provided to facilitate access to this complex body of literature.
[For searches, go to "Collection Search: Search Database," below]
Molluscan journals began in the 1770s, with a series of short-lived German serials published by J. S. Schröter. Today, the field of molluscan literature is blessed with (and at times haunted by) an amazing diversity of serials. These include scientific journals that publish original research articles intended as part of the permanent scientific record. They also include newsletters, often from regional shell clubs, meant to disseminate knowledge in layman's terms and often providing valuable zoogeographic and ecological information (and, unfortunately, inadvertently or deliberately from time to time introducing taxonomic descriptions and type designations). The boundaries between these are sometimes blurred, with newsletters sometimes developing into peer-reviewed journals and self-proclaimed journals occasionally disappearing into oblivion.
Malacological serials are published in many countries around the world and most are not tracked by indexing or interlibrary loan services. Numerous title changes over time, duplicate names, and often rapidly changing places (and even countries) of publication, have made it very difficult to obtain such materials. In 1991 we published an annotated list of 286 malacological journals and newsletters (representing 374 titles from 31 countries), 157 of which were still being published.
The following link provides excerpts from that article, giving details on the compilation and analysis:
View lessWe thank the following colleagues who have checked the entries for various countries or states on our behalf: R. Tucker Abbott, Philippe Bouchet, Walter Cernohorsky, Eugene Coan, Richard Kilburn, Ian Loch, Bruce Marshall, Akihiko Matsukuma, Paula Mikkelsen, Robert Moolenbeek, Richard Petit and Walter Sage; their assistance was indispensable.
In addition, a large number of individuals provided information on certain publications. These include Roland Anderson, Chris Appleton, Jose, R. Arrébola Burgos, Ruby Barry, Alan Bebbington, Connie Boone, Carol Boswell, Marion Britz, Linda Brunner, Paul Callomon, James Carlton, Jean Cate, Barb Collins, Phil Colman, Marcus Coltro, Alexandre Dias Pimenta, Phyllis Diegel, Karl Edlinger, Yves Finet, Laurie Ford, Peggy Fox, Levente Füköh, Daniel Geiger, Dorothy Germer, Raye Germon, Riccardo Giannuzzi-Savelli, Kathy Glass, Mark Grygier, Alison Haynes, Sue Hobbs, Roland Houart, Russell Jensen, Jürgen H. Jungbluth, Rudolf Kilias, L. A. Koestel, Florence Kuczynski, Marc Lavaleye, Betty Lawson, Jóse Leal, Harry G. Lee, Jesús López Llorens, Charlotte Lloyd, Ian Loch, Steven Long, Konstantin Lutaenko, Ryuichi Majima, Jordan Marché, Bruce Marshall, Carole Marshall, George Metz, Henk Mienis, Ken Moran, Walter Morgan, Betty Muirhead, Olive Peel, Frances Perry, Charles Pettitt, Alfonso Pina, William Pitt, Berneice Plummer, Guido Poppe, Thomas Rice, Gary Rosenberg, Richard Salisbury, Fabrizio Scarabino, J. B. Sessoms, Carlos Prieto Sierra, Carol Skoglund, Shirley Slack-Smith, John Stanisic, Mike Sweeney, José Templado, Jane Topping, F. White, Thora Whitehead, Peggy Williams, Shi-Kuei Wu, and Yoshizo Yukita; we appreciate their help.
Kenneth Boss, Eugene Coan, William Emerson, M. G. Harasewych, Richard Johnson, Richard Petit and Gary Rosenberg provided helpful discussion concerning the content and the introductory material of the 1991 paper here excerpted.
For this online version, we have added various new titles and several previously overlooked publications that have come to our attention, as well as supplemental or corrected information on serials listed in the 1991 publication. When we wrote the original article, we thought that perhaps malacology had reached (or was approaching) the saturation point in terms of the quantity of malacological serial. We were wrong - or premature at best - since the numerous new serials catalogued herein clearly demonstrate the prolific fecundity of malacological editors and societies.
In addition, our field has seen the creation of several Internet electronic bulletin boards, newsletters and listservers, some of which replacing previous paper versions. These "paperless" serials provide a medium of rapid communication but are, intentionally or not, more ephemeral than traditional serials and not tracked in this database (they are, hopefully, archived at their home institutions and organizations).
Updates and Corrections
The body of this compilation stems from our knowledge of the serial holdings of seven major malacological libraries: Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia; Delaware Museum of Natural History; Field Museum of Natural History; Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris; Museum of Comparative Zoölogy; The Natural History Museum, London; and National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. This list was augmented by extensive correspondence with various colleagues who checked certain geographical sections, and through input from editors of shell club newsletters and various individuals who commented on our 1991 list. From now on, we depend on input from the database users:
Please inform us of additions and corrections, ideally with supporting materials (such as originals or copies of serial issues that we might have missed). Our home institutions are maintaining extensive collections of malacological journals and newsletters for public use and all contributions will be added to our formal library holdings.
Rüdiger Bieler
