NOTES ON URLS IN RECORDS FOR PRINT ITEMS
Many records for print materials come to catalogers with URLs in 856 fields, and sometimes we may consider adding an 856 field when creating a new record or editing a record without one. The following is an attempt to answer questions about when they should be kept, when they should be deleted, and whether new ones should ever be added. The notes are organized according to what the URLs link to. (Information on what a URL links to should be included in the 856 $3 subfield—e.g., “Table of contents” or “Online version.”)
ONLINE VERSION OF THE ITEM
If an online version of a monograph is freely available (no special authorization is required to see it), a URL for it may be left on a record or added to it. The indicators for the 856 field in this case should be “41,” the “1” indicating that the URL links to a version of the actual item described in the record. An Internet call record should be added, to allow users doing library-specific searching to find this record (records with a holding library of “Internet” are found by a user searching by any specific library). OCLC records for many Rand Corporation books have such URLs for online versions.
As of Apr. 2006 there is no policy which says catalogers must look for online versions and add URLs for them as a routine part of cataloging. There may, however, be some specific situations in which adding URLs to the records for particular groups of books is mandated. For example, standing orders for many print monographic series for Science have recently been cancelled in favor of providing electronic access to the monographs in the series. We will now be cataloging the electronic versions of books in these series, and in a related move will be adding URLs to records for books in the same series which we got in print prior to the cancellations, so that the same electronic access will be available to those texts.
Serials are different. Because we use an electronic journal management system to handle online serials, URLs for online versions generally should not be added to records for print serials. If you are concerned that access to an online version should be provided to users, Ann Ercelawn can check into adding the title to the management system's knowledge base.
Order Services staff have been told not to speed catalog a book that contains an 856 that links to an online version.
TABLES OF CONTENTS
Many records will come to us with 856 fields linking to a table of contents provided by LC. (The receivers in Order Services leave these 856s in a record when they route a book to us for cataloging.) These will have a second indicator of “2,” for “related resource.” Retaining these fields is a mater of judgment. When we have no other table of contents information in the record, we should probably retain the 856. If we have a 505 field but the online table of contents is more detailed, it might be worth retaining the 856. Remember that a 505 field is superior to the online table of contents because it is keyword searchable—it may be worth adding a 505 field in place of, or in addition to, an online table of contents.
We definitely do not search for online tables of contents to link to.
Order Services staff may speed catalog a book with an 856 that links to a table of contents.
PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTIONS/AUTHOR INFORMATION
We do not include 856s for these in our records. Order Services staff remove them before speed cataloging or routing books to the cataloging team, and we should not add them back in or add them to records which previously did not have them.
P. Wilson 4/6/2006