Standard Cataloging Procedures - Bibliographic Record Standards

Standard Cataloging Procedures - Bibliographic Record Standards

Standard Cataloging Procedures

The Standard Cataloging Procedures (SCP) articles and video tutorials (below) are meant to be a guide for cataloging practices in the Montana Shared Catalog library consortium. For more explanation of the topics covered herein, please refer to the Help menu in WorkFlows (F1), or contact the MSC staff or your cataloging mentor.


2. Bibliographic Record Standards

Before modifying, creating, or loading bibliographic records into the MSC, catalogers must first be familiar with MSC record standards. These standards exist in order to ensure consistent record quality, to aid patron discovery, and to conform to resource sharing guidelines created by OCLC. Member libraries are responsible for adhering to standards of quality for all bibliographic records to which they have attached their items/holdings.

Types of records 

The type of bibliographic record governs its record standard in the MSC. There are two main types: permanent and temporary records. Each has several sub-types.  
  1. Permanent records
    1. Full - fully cataloged records whose holdings appear in OCLC
    2. Local - records for use in-house or local use only (e.g. equipment such as e-Readers, DVD players, or life jackets, fishing poles) – items whose holdings do not appear in OCLC (see sections 5.55.6)
  2. Temporary records – some of these can become permanent records, but are intended to exist for only a short time in the catalog
    1. Brief – records for items that are in your collection but do not have a permanent record at the time of check-out (see section 5.1)
    2. ILL – records that correspond to incoming Interlibrary loan items (see section 5.2)
    3. On-Order – records that correspond to items on order, often for use with the Acquisitions Module using the ON-ORDER format, which will be fully cataloged once the item arrives (see section 5.3)
    4. CIP – (Cataloging-in-publication) records lacking appropriate descriptions of the published item designated by Encoding Level 8 in the fixed field (see section 5.4)

2.1 MARC Record Standard for Permanent Records

As you choose records to attach to or import, please note that the minimum tags and indicators for Permanent Full records required by the MSC are:
  1. (001) Control number (OCLC number preferred, should not include vendor control numbers)
  2. (007) Physical characteristics (for audio-visual, large print and kits only) (see section 6.5)
  3. (010) Library of Congress catalog number (if available)
  4. (020) ISBN (if available, see section 6.7)
  5. (035) OCLC control number (if available)
  6. (1XX) author, when applicable with proper indicators
  7. (245) title, with proper indicators 
  8. (260/264) publication information (260 appears only in hybridized records, see section 2.3)
  9. (300) physical description
  10. (33X) Content, media, and carrier (hybridize all non-RDA records) (see section 6.12)
  11. (6XX) at least one subject heading, Montana specific headings highly encouraged (see sections 6.8 and 6.9)
  12. (7XX) added author, when applicable
  13. (856) electronic location & access (for resources available electronically, with specific attention to the subfield z when access is not for all libraries) (see section 6.11.1)
For a MARC tag "cheat sheet" see Standard Cataloging Procedures - MARC Tag Cheat Sheet

For Permanent Local records 

Record standards for these types of records will vary by institution. Instructions for cataloging equipment and other local records are handled specifically in section 5.6.2. All records must contain a 245 field, 338 field and NOT contain title control numbers that would conflict with permanent full records. Further required fields are discussed in each section.

Whenever possible, make every effort to attach to an existing record rather than importing or creating a new record in through SmartPort or Add Brief Title. All information that does not describe general items but is specific to your item (e.g. serial numbers or accession information) should be recorded in item notes and not in the bib record.

2.2 MARC Record Standard for Temporary Records

Brief records will be handled in depth in  section 5.1, ILLs in section 5.2, On-Order records in section 5.3, and CIP record in section 5.4.

On-Order records

The majority of On-Order records in the MSC come from vendors and are added in order to track order and fund information in the Acquisitions Module. They often lack appropriate control numbers other than the ISBN but are updated to permanent full records when the item data is added.

For those On-Order records not created for use with the Acquisitions Module, it is preferred that staff find a quality record in OCLC. If one cannot be found, you may bring in a CIP record. If no record exists for your title you may create a brief title (see section 5.3.1).

For On-Order records loaded from vendors or created using Add Brief Title, please use the following tags to aid with matching:
  1. (010) Library of Congress catalog number (if available)
  2. (020) ISBN (if available, but only if it applies) (see section 6.7)
  3. (035) OCLC control number (if available)
  4. (1XX) author, when applicable 
  5. (245) title, with proper indicators
Because these temporary titles will be updated to permanent records once the items have been received, they will eventually need to conform to the Permanent Full record standards above. For more information about creating, updating, and recognizing On-order records see section 5.3.

2.3 RDA Standards

RDA stands for Resource Description and Access. RDA is the current cataloging standard. Anglo American Cataloging Rules (AACR2) records are now considered legacy records which have been hybridized to contain RDA elements. MSC catalogers should be familiar with how RDA records look and should not modify or delete any pertinent fields during import or cataloging.

Notable in an RDA record:
  1. International Standard Bibliographic Description bracketing: 264_1 |a[Washington, D.C.] |b[G.P.O?] |c[2009?]
  2. International Standard Bibliographic Description end of field punctuation: for fields that require a full stop (such as 245, 250, 300) add punctuation even if it ends in an abbreviation.
  3. Inaccuracies are transcribed as found.
  4. In general, do not use abbreviations unless that is how it is found on the source.
  5. Records no longer use Latin abbreviations such as [sic], [s.n.], [s.l.], [et al.].
MARC
RDA Practices
008
Desc should = i
040
|b eng  |e rda
100 / 110
Addition of relator terms and codes (e.g. |e author (or |e composer, etc.) |4 aut)
245 |a
Change any all CAPS title to sentence case. If title case, accept as is.
Inaccuracies are transcribed as is (do not use [sic]). Create 246 with corrected title spellings.
245 |h
Obsolete in RDA. OCLC Sunset date for GMDs was 31 March 2016. The CMC recommends that you no longer add GMDs to new records but do not delete GMDs from existing records.
250
Transcribe as found; use only abbreviations found in the source.
264 _ 1
Publication statement (formerly 260).
Do not use abbreviations unless they appear on resource. Not required to use first place in the "home country"; only first or most prominent required. Publisher name and place always required even if it is [Place of publication not identified] or [publisher not identified].
264 _ 2
New field: distribution statement
264 _ 3
New field: manufacture statement
264 _ 4
New field: copyright statement. Use symbol  © (e.g. 264_4 :|c©2013)
300 |a
Generally, do not use abbreviations (spell out "pages"), but do use abbreviations for time (e.g. 1 videodisc(73 min.))
Examples: 1 audio disc; 1 online resource; 3 microfiches; 2 microfilm reels; 5 microscope slides; 1 overhead transparency; 6 cards; 2 videodiscs
300 |b
Do not use abbreviations.
300 |c
"cm" is a symbol; therefore, it is not followed by a period unless there is a 490 field in the record.
Do use the abbreviation "in." for discs and other audio carriers.
336
337
338
Content type, media type, and carrier type
EXAMPLE for a printed book with text content:
336: text|btxt|2rdacontent
337: unmediated|bn|2rdamedia
338: volume|bnc|2rdacarrier
490
No abbreviations; no rule to substitute Arabic numerals for Roman; convert numbers expressed as words to numerals, including ordinal numbers
700 / 710
Addition of relator terms and codes (e.g. |e contributor (or |e illustrator, etc.) |4 cnt)

Video Tutorial

Start video at 03:36.

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