Most people might find this confusing; I think only people in my business–the oh-so-exciting world of abstracting and indexing–would find it funny. Which, in the end, is kind of sad. Enjoy this bibliographic divertissement, quoted in last week’s New Yorker (Mar. 29, 2004):
Department of Utter Confusion
From the Key Reporter, a newsletter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society.
Librarians, archivists, and others who save The Key Reporter will note that starting with this issue–Number 1–the newsletter is numbered in accordance with the January-December calendar cycle. The first issue in a sequence of four will be published in January. The previous sequence followed the academic calendar, with the Number 1 issue appearing in the fall.
The Fall 2003 edition was wrongly identified as Number 3; it was Number 4. In past years the Summer issue was published in July and the Fall issue in November. In order to report promptly on the 40th Triennial Council last August, there was no Summer edition, and the Fall Key Reporter was mailed in September.
Well, that clears things up.