040 Cataloging Source

In OCLC records (and thus in NHAIS records) the 040 is a mandatory, non-repeating tag which contains information about who created the record; what guidelines were used to create it; and who (if anyone) has modified it.

A code, defined in the Directory of OCLC Members, is used in these subfields to indicate which agency has done something to the record:

• subfield a - contains the agency that created the record originally 
• subfield c - is the agency that transcribed the record (sometimes this is the same as the creator, but not always)
• subfield d - is the agency (or, most often, agencies) that has (or have) modified the record in some way since it was created
  

 If you want to use records created by the Library of Congress, those can be identified by looking for "DLC" in subfield a of the 040 tag.

Subfield b contains the Language of Cataloging, represented by a three-character language code from the MARC Code List for Languages which identifies the language of cataloging. That is, what language those portions of the record that, according to cataloging instructions, appear in the language of the cataloging agency (e.g., the physical description and non-quoted notes) are in. The code in this subfield has nothing to do with the language of the thing being cataloged. Because OCLC has become an international resource for cataloging records it now supports parallel records in different languages. NHAIS only uses records where the language of cataloging is English. Occasionally records in other languages slip in, but we replace those as soon as we discover them.

Subfield e, which is not always present, contains the Description Conventions. This tells you what instructions for descriptive cataloging were used to create the record. For example, if the record was created following RDA it will say "rda" in subfield e. If it was created according to AACR2 there probably won't be a subfield e in the 040 tag because that description convention is part of the fixed field. If there is a code in this subfield other than RDA you can check Description Convention Source Codes to see what it means.