Justification

‘Language of Cataloging’ must be English.

Policy

Alliance libraries are required to use English as the ‘Language of Cataloging’ in MARC records.

Alliance libraries should not use OCLC records with a ‘Language of Cataloging’ other than English for acquisitions or cataloging.

‘Language of Cataloging’ refers to the language of the descriptive cataloging, not the language of the resource. It is the language used by the cataloging agency.

‘Language of Cataloging’ is coded in field 040, subfield $b.

If subfield $b is not present, the language of cataloging is assumed to be English.

When copy cataloging, if a matching record is cataloged in a language other than English, enter a parallel record in OCLC following the guidelines in OCLC Bibliographic Formats and Standards 2.6, Language of Cataloging, and then export that record into the NZ.

Cleanup of existing non-English cataloging is recommended (as resources permit). To find such records with your holdings attached in WorldCat, turn off the ‘Language of Cataloging Limiter’ in the Search WorldCat dialog box, then search by ‘li: [your OCLC code] not ll:eng’.

Exceptions to this policy may be made in the case of large record sets provided by vendors (including resources activated in a Knowledge Base like the Community Zone), but Alliance members must make a commitment to using the available records that most closely adhere to this policy in such cases.

Background

Software: Alma

Current phase: Phase 5: Approved

Written by: Collaborative Technical Services Team

Approved by: Collaborative Technical Services Team on 9/26/2014; Reviewed and reaffirmed with minor edits by Technical Services Working Group on 10/11/2016

Last updated: 10/11/2016

Nature of last update: new policy

Document History: TSWG added a link to an OCLC resource in its 10/11/2016 revision.