The UKMARC Manual

The British Library adopted MARC 21 as its cataloguing format in June 2004. Since that date, these pages have not been maintained. Information on our current practices can be found on our Bibliographic Standards pages.

Glossary

AACR2

Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2nd edition, 1988 revision.

Access point

A name, word, phrase or other form of heading under which a bibliographic record may be entered in a catalogue.

Added entry

An second or subsequent entry additional to the main entry, by which an item is entered in a catalogue.

Address codes

see Standard address numbers

Analytical entry

An entry for a part of an item for which a comprehensive catalogue record has already been made.

Bibliographic record

A catalogue entry for a bibliographic item containing data held in a structured form.

BNB

The British National Bibliography, the national bibliography of the United Kingdom published by the British Library.

BNB Number

The BNB number is an eight character code assigned to a work included in the British National Bibliography and consists of::
i) a 'b' character
ii) the last 2 digits of the year of processing (until 2000)
iii) a five digit processing number (right justified with zero fill)

Notes:
From 1992 to 1999 the five digit processing number was one alphanumeric character (1-9,a-z) followed by four digits right justified with zero fill.

From 2000 onwards the last two digits of the year of processing also changed: the first will become a capital letter acting as a decade counter.

Example:
bA001391

BNBMARC record

A bibliographic record in the UKMARC format produced by the British Library for inclusion in the printed British National Bibliography and associated databases and services.

Catalogue

A list of bibliographic items specific to one collection or library, or available from a particular agency such as a publisher.

Cataloguing-in-Publication Programme

A programme operated by the British Library whereby advance bibliographic records for forthcoming publications are bought in from outside agencies and included in the printed British National Bibliography and other British Library databases and services. ‘CIP records’ may be used as the basis for BNBMARC records being amended and revised when the published book is deposited with the British Library.

Collective title

An inclusive title for an item containing several works or a title used to collocate the publications of an author, composer, or corporate body containing several works, or extracts etc. from several works, e.g. Complete works.

Copyright Libraries Shared Cataloguing Programme

A programme managed by the British Library with the aim of sharing cataloguing responsibility amongst the six British and Irish libraries with legal deposit privilege under UK and Irish law. The Programme aims to maximise the currency, quality and coverage of the national bibliographic service.

Entry

A record of an item in a catalogue.

Field

A part of a record, the contents of which may be regarded as forming a unit.

Heading

A name, word or phrase at the head of a catalogue entry which provides an access point in a catalogue.

ISBN

The International Standard Book Number is a number allocated by the UK ISBN Agency to identify uniquely each edition of a book. The UK ISBN Agency can be contacted at: ISBN Agency, 3rd Floor, Midas House, 62 Goldsworth Road, Woking, Surrey, GU21 6LQ, tel. 0870 777 8712, fax 0870 777 8714, email isbn.agency@nielsen.com
ISBNs are held in the machine record as a 10 digit string without embedded spaces (though these may be added by the computer to produce a more helpful output). The final character is a check digit which verifies that the ISBN is properly constructed and may be any numeric character or an upper-case x.

ISSN

The International Standard Serial Number is a number allocated by the UK ISSN Centre to identify a serial title uniquely. The UK ISSN Centre is managed by the British Library. ISSNs are held in the machine record as an 8 digit string without embedded spaces (though these may be added by the computer to produce a more helpful output). The final character is a check digit which verifies that the ISSN is properly constructed and may be any numeric character or an upper-case x.

Level of information

An indication, in a multipart item catalogued using multilevel description as described in AACR2 13.6, of whether the descriptive information relates to the item as a whole, or to an individual part or group of parts. In BNBMARC records, it is signalled by the use of an indicator in conjunction with the presence of one or more 248 fields.

Main entry

The complete catalogue record of an item.

Monograph

A non-serial publication, i.e. an item either complete in one part, or complete (or intended to be completed) in a finite number of separate parts.

Multipart item

A monograph complete, or intended to be completed, in a finite number of volumes.

Non-filing characters

Any characters at the start of a particular field which are not to be taken into account in filing, e.g. the definite or indefinite article, blanks and the apostrophes following them.

Serial

A publication in any medium issued in successive parts bearing a numerical or chronological designation and intended to be continued indefinitely, e.g. newspapers, periodicals, yearbooks.

Series

1. A group of separate items related to one another by the fact that each item bears, in addition to its own title proper, a collective title applying to the group as a whole. The individual items may or may not be numbered.

2. Each of two or more volumes of essays, lectures, articles or other writings, similar in character and issued in sequence, e.g. Dickens’ Sketches by Boz, first and second series.

3. A separately numbered sequence of volumes within a series or serial, e.g. Notes and queries, 1st series, 2nd series, etc.

Standard address numbers

SANs are 9-digit numbers representing publisher and other addresses. They are assigned by the Standard Address Number Agency,
Woolmead House West, Bear Lane, Farnham, Surrey, GU9 7LG.

Subfield

A part of a field, the contents of which may be regarded as forming a unit.

Subfield code

Two characters immediately preceding and identifying a subfield, represented in this manual by $ followed by a lower-case alphabetic.

Subrecord

An analytical entry for a part of an item for which a comprehensive catalogue record already exists.

UKMARC bibliographic format

The British national MARC format as specified and described in the UKMARC manual. Input formats which use the MARC format content designators within a different structure are referred to as ‘MARC compatibles’ or ‘local MARC formats’. These include the formats used in various British Library and other catalogues.

For further information please contact:

The British Library
Bibliographic Development
Boston Spa, Wetherby
West Yorkshire
LS23 7BQ
United Kingdom

Tel: + 44 (0) 1937 546548
Fax: + 44 (0) 1937 546586
Email: bd-info@bl.uk