1) Currently received/active serials (paid subscriptions) use the 853-5/863-5 paired fields and predictive check-in. Active serial subscriptions are handled by Widener serials for payment, check-in, and claiming-- not by Houghton staff. Houghton staff perform the binding and final barcoding of the volumes.
2) Non-active serials can employ either the 853-5/863-5 paired fields or the 866 Summary holding statement. See the MARC Holdings documentation for more information:
http://www.loc.gov/marc/holdings/hd866868.html
3) Each volume should have its own item record. The item record should include the volume information in both the "Description:" field and in the appropriate "Enumeration levels". See the ALEPH Item Processing Guide for more information: http://hul.harvard.edu/ois/systems/aleph/docs/train_item.pdf
Example
Figure 48: New serial item, Tab 2
Figure 48: New serial item, Tab 5 (Enumeration levels)
3) Irregular, gift serial titles (such as book dealer catalogs deemed worthy of bibliographic cataloging) use #2 for guidelines.