WYLD TECHNOTE 29: CIP Record Enhancement in Unicorn

revised - May 2003

CIP (Cataloging in Publication) records can be identified by their encoding level (Enc_Lv) in the fixed field of the bibliographic record and by their lack of information in the 300 tag (physical description). Because these records are created prior to the publication of the materials, the records contain incomplete, and occasionally incorrect, information. For this reason, it is important to verify both the LC number (tag 010 |a) and the ISBN (tag 020) to be sure it is the correct item. Libraries are strongly urged to enhance these records whenever one is encountered as it benefits all WYLD libraries.

You must use the Maintain Existing Titles wizard to make modifications to the bibliographic record.

Fixed Field:

Encoding level: The encoding level of a CIP record is an 8 and appears in the fixed field as the third element in the first line: Enc_Lv: 8. When you enhance the CIP record, you need to change this encoding level to a blank. (Tab over to this element in the fixed field, or position your cursor on this element and click the mouse. Hit the space bar to create the blank space).

Illus: This abbreviation for illustrations appears as the second element of the fourth line of the fixed field for printed materials. The codes used here describe the illustrative matter of the book and correspond to the illustrations listed in the 300 tag (which also must be enhanced). If there are no illustrations, leave Illus. in the fixed field blank. Up to 4 (four) single characters can be used and could include:

A more extensive list of codes and their meaning can be found in "Understanding Marc Bibliographic" provided by the Library of Congress. Most WYLD libraries have a copy of this (magenta cover: 2000 ed.; teal cover: 1998 ed.; red cover: 1994 ed.) The 2000 version of this is also available on the Library of Congress web site at: http://lcweb.loc.gov/marc/umb/

Dates: The last element in the second line of the fixed field is a place for entering a single date. This Date 1 element should match the publication date in the book in hand and the date entered in the subfield "c" of the 260 tag in the bibliographic record (260 |c). If it does not, correct the fixed field date and the date in the 260 tag to match the date in the item in hand. The date is just the year; it does not include a month designation.

Additional comment: If corrections are made to the fixed field date and the 260 subfield "c" date, it may also be necessary to correct the date that appears as part of the call number in the 050 tag. This is the LC call number and is used by some of the WYLD college libraries. They would appreciate the correction.

 

Variable Fields:

Tags in the body of the CIP bibliographic record also need to be reviewed for accuracy and incomplete information.

1xx tag: Be sure this main entry is accurate. If there are dates associated with a personal name entry (100 tag), be sure they are correct. (If "UNAUTHORIZED" appears next to the information in the 1xx tag, click on the Validate Headings shield helper to verify the heading in the bibliographic record. The invalid name will appear as an unauthorized heading in the next window displayed. To determine if there is a correct form of that name in the WYLD database, click on the gadget at the right end of the data well. This will take you into the Authority File at the point where this name would appear in the hit list. To view an authority record from this hit list, click on the "A" to the left of the name to highlight that entry, then click on the "Display" button at the bottom. Or if you are confident that the name on the hit list is the correct entry, click the "OK" button which will immediately put that entry into the bibliographic record you were viewing. If the correct name does not appear in the Authority File hit list, click the "Return" button on the far right at the bottom of the screen. This will return you to the CIP bibliographic record without changing the form of entry of the invalid heading). Sometimes the only problem is mistyped dates associated with the name or a misspelling of the name.

245 tag: Often the title proper (invisible subfield "a") and/or subtitle (subfield "b") changes from the time the CIP cataloging is done from galley proofs until the item is actually published. Correct the title/subtitle according to the title page (or other chief source of information) of the item in hand. Also check the indicators for this tag. Indicators are the 2 (two) digits that appear in the box between the numeric field number and the tag data well. The second indicator is particularly important here as it tells the system how many characters to skip when indexing the title. Therefore, if the title proper begins with an initial article (A, An, The), the second indicator should be 2, 3, 4 respectively so the system does not file on those initial articles. Examples:

These second indicator values tell the system to skip the number of letters in the first word and the space following that word. Therefore in the last example here, the system correctly skips the three letters of the word "The" plus the space following it and indexes the title on the word "life". If there is no initial article, this second indicator should be a 0 (zero) so the system will file on the first word of the title.

263 tag: Delete this tag. It contains the projected publication date. Use the blue asterisk helper in the upper right corner of the Modify Title window to delete the entire tag.

300 tag:In a CIP record, this tag appears with only p. cm. supplied. Of course, since the item is not published at the time of cataloging, the physical description information is unavailable to the cataloger. To benefit both public users and librarians alike, catalogers should complete this tag. The first subfield, which is unlabeled, is subfield "a" and contains the pagination (including any preliminary pagination), subfield "b" contains illustrations, and subfield "c" contains the size of the item in centimeters. ***Remember, if you added a code in the fixed field for illustrations, you need to reflect that information here in subfield "b".***

Examples of completed 300 tags:

When all of these enhancements have been made to the record, click the "OK" button to save the changes to the database.

---

technote 29 - May 12, 2003