Policy for Contents Notes in Bibliographic Records for Print Materials

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Oct 16, 2019
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Policy for Contents Notes in Bibliographic Records
for Print Materials

Technical Services Department

Purpose: The purpose of this policy is to strike a balance between providing sufficient and appropriate access to the library collection via contents notes in bibliographic records and cataloging materials in a timely fashion.

Policy

1. The Christopher Center will follow AACR2 and Library of Congress Rule Interpretations when adding contents notes to bibliographic records.

a) Generally, contents notes will not be added to or deleted from DLC copy at the time of

cataloging, unless an enhanced content note is needed to conform to the local policy

as noted in #2 below.
b) Generally, standard contents notes will be used except as noted below.

2. “Enhanced” contents notes (as defined by the use of MARC tags) will be used for

a) multivolume sets when individual volumes have unique titles, or

b)for single volume monographs that include chapters or works by separate authors where

the author’s name is included in the table of contents, or

c) for individually titled songs or works in a score.

3. LC copy will be modified only to conform to local policy for enhanced contents notes as noted in #2 above. Questions concerning the adequacy of LC copy should be addressed to the Head of Technical Services.

4. Public services librarians may request that contents notes be added to a specific Galileo record if they determined that improved access is needed.

5. Cataloging staff may “enhance” exiting contents notes retrospectively to conform with this policy if time permits, but there will be no systematic project to do so.

Important background notes:

• The MARC tag for contents notes is 505. Enhanced contents notes can be identified by second indicator 0 and the use of subfield t designating the separate titles listed in the note.

• In Galileo, standard contents notes (without subfield t) are indexed in the keyword index. Enhanced contents notes are indexed both in the keyword and title indexes, the sections identified by subfield t included in the title index. Subfield g is used to designate information excluded from the title index.

• Titles in enhanced contents notes do not need additional title added entries (24X or 74X fields).

• If author access is needed for titles listed in contents notes, enhanced contents notes are not used. Instead, standard contents notes are used with 700 entries with subfield a for the author and subfield t for the title. This allows the system to run proper authority control and indexing for the author.

• AACR2 2.7B18 and 21.7B are the primary rules governing contents notes. The latest LCRI on this topic is dated May 2000 for 2.7B18

• The Innopac tag for contents notes is j.

Donna R.R. Resetar, Associate Dean of Library Services, 3 March 2010