Vuosikerta

Vuosikerta is the Finnish term for an annual volume or the complete edition of a periodical published within a single calendar year. It is used in bibliographic descriptions, library catalogs, and publishing to indicate the year in which the issues were released and often to group those issues together.

The word stems from vuosi, meaning year, and kerta, meaning copy, edition, or issue. Thus vuosikerta literally translates to “year edition.” The plural form is vuosikerrat. In catalog records, the concept helps distinguish between an individual issue (numero) and the collection of issues produced during one year.

In practice, a periodical may present a single yearly volume that contains all issues from that year, or it may simply label each issue by year without creating a separate bound annual. Some journals and magazines also publish a separate annual volume or yearbook (vuosikerta) that collects content from the year, sometimes with editorial material or an index.

Usage varies by publication and library tradition, but the term remains a standard bibliographic category in Finnish libraries for organizing and describing the output of continuing serials on a yearly basis. It is most commonly encountered with periodicals published in Finland or published in Finnish.

See also: lehti (periodical), aikakausjulkaisu (periodical), numero (issue), sarja (series).