Cataloging Electronic Resources: OCLC-MARC Coding Guidelines

Cataloging Electronic Resources  : OCLC-MARC Coding Guidelines

By Jay Weitz, Senior Consulting Database Specialist, OCLC WorldCat Quality Management Division, Revised 2006 July 11.

Introduction

This document originally combined and superseded two older sets of OCLC guidelines for dealing with electronic resources: "Cataloging Electronic Resources: OCLC-MARC Coding Guidelines," by Rich Greene, first published in February 1998; and "OCLC Guidelines on the Choice of Type and BLvl for Electronic Resources," by Jay Weitz, first published in March 1998. This consolidated document was originally prompted by the issuance in June 1999 of "Guidelines for Coding Electronic Resources in Leader/06" by the Library of Congress Network Development and MARC Standards Office. Since that time, it has also incorporated changes prompted by the 2001 revision of AACR2 Chapter 9, “Electronic Resources;” the 2002 revision of AACR2 to take into account integrating resources; the MARC 21 changes implemented on 2002 December 1 in preparation for the full implementation of coding for integrating resources; and the MARC 21 changes implemented in June 2006 that fully implement Bibliographic Level "i" for integrating resources.

Like the two superseded OCLC documents, this revised set of guidelines is intended to assist catalogers in creating records for electronic resources in WorldCat, the OCLC Online Union Catalog. These guidelines pertain to OCLC-MARC tagging (that is, content designation). Cataloging rules and manuals (such as AACR2) govern the content of records. You should implement these guidelines immediately.