Periodical Title Abbreviations. Volume 1: By Abbreviation is part of the two‐volume set Periodical Title Abbreviations, the second volume of which (not received for review) lists periodicals by title. First published in 1969 and long edited by Alkire, Periodical Title Abbreviations now appears to be issued on an annual basis. At one point there was an inter‐edition updating supplement published as a third volume. However, there is no mention of this in the review volume or in Gale's publicity material so it is assumed this has been discontinued, presumably rendered unnecessary by the move to annual publication. Frequently referred to as “PTA” (an abbreviation that is not listed), the scope and content of the set is captured by the characteristically long Gale subtitle: Covering Periodical Title Abbreviations, Database Abbreviations and Selected Monograph Abbreviations in Science, the Social Sciences, the Humanities, Law, Medicine, Religion, Library Science, Engineering, Education, Business, Art and Many Other Fields. Apparently available only as printed volumes, PTA is produced to the usual Gale high standards in sturdy bindings but on the almost tissue thin paper used in some of the company's other directories. It is a weapon in the publisher's armoury of abbreviation taming tools, the foremost of which is Acronyms, Initialisms & Abbreviations Dictionary, now in its 38th edition.
A brief highlights page preceding the one page introduction states that this 17th edition contains 231,000 entries including 7,500 new abbreviations. The abbreviated periodical titles, displayed in boldface type, are arranged alphabetically letter‐by‐letter. If, as is frequently and confusingly the case, the abbreviation has more than one meaning the various expansions are sub‐arranged on the same basis. Entries are laid out in a well spaced, easy on the eye, three‐column format. Most provide only the complete title for the abbreviation, but in some cases other detail is included. Depending on the nature of the abbreviation and the information available this can include explanation of acronym within the title, an English translation, the sponsoring organization or publisher and place of publication. In addition to the preliminary matter already mentioned, there is an extract from a 1978 article by Alkire in Serials Librarian discussing the issues and problems of controlling periodical title abbreviations and a useful User's Guide with a sample entry.
Also in the preliminary matter is Major Sources of Abbreviations, a listing of c.100 bibliographies, indexes, abstracting services and periodicals that have been used to compile the entries. This includes many of the expected names, for example most of the H.W. Wilson family of indexes, but has a somewhat dated feel and a bias to North American publications. A large percentage of the sources are now primarily, or in some cases exclusively, available electronically and one wonders to what extent the changes this will have brought to the use and significance of abbreviations is reflected in the updating of PTA. Few non‐US published sources are included, although both British Education Index and British Technology Index are cited, as is Canadian Periodicals Index. For international coverage K.G. Saur's ITA, now in its 11th edition (Leistner, 2006), is probably more comprehensive, especially for German language and European periodical abbreviations.
When considering the continuing value of PTA as a tool for navigating the maze of contractions, acronyms and the like used as shorthand labels for periodical titles it is important to remember, as editor Alkire points out in the Introduction, that it is “intended as a record of things as they are, not as they ‘should’ be” (p. xi). PTA's purpose is to record how periodical titles have been abbreviated in various sources, not prescribe how the abbreviation of periodicals should be carried out. Various indexing tools and databases have their own conventions for shortening titles, while there are national and international standards (ISO 4) and the List of Title Word Abbreviations (known as LTWA and based on ISO 4) maintained by the ISSN International Centre. The latter, containing a list of 54,000 words and their abbreviations and available both in print and online (www.issn.org/en/node/344), can be a useful and authoritative, if somewhat laborious, alternative to PTA for checking the probable expansion of individual words in an abbreviated title.
Despite LTWA, and alternative printed sources such as ITA, there can be no doubt that PTA remains a convenient and useful tool for any information professional challenged to decipher abbreviated versions of periodical titles. Many abbreviations may be obvious and sometimes it is possible to hazard a guess, but PTA will usually provide reliable answers. All libraries supporting research or dealing with a significant amount of inter‐library loan traffic still need to hold a recent edition of PTA.
