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Details about compliance with Library of Congress authority records

Discover details about compliance with Library of Congress authority records, including when compliance is automatic, restrictions on headings, error correction and geographic subfields.

Automatic compliance with Library of Congress authority records

  • When you control headings in bibliographic records using Connexion, the system enforces compliance with Library of Congress (LC) standards and practices.
  • Compliance is triggered by the particular LC authority record being used to supply authority control, not the field in the bibliographic record to which you apply authority control.
  • If you add headings but do not control them, the system does not enforce compliance with Library of Congress practice.

 Note: The examples below are not intended to be an exhaustive list of all possible cases of compliance.

Restrictions on headings

The table below describes some common examples of restrictions on headings based on the codes in the 008 field in the Library of Congress authority record.

LC MARC coding
that initiates compliance
Field and heading entered in bibliographic record Result in bibliographic record (field conversion supplies authority control)
008/16 = b 830 _0 Today (London, England) 730 _0

Heading cannot be used as a series.
008/14 = b 100 1_ Petitjean de la Rosiaere, Jean Marie Henriette, ‡d 1875-1947 Heading retained as entered, but not authority controlled.
610 20 ‡a Ohio 651 _0 Ohio
008-09 = b 650 _0 Area Heading retained as entered, but not authority- controlled

Results set when available.
008/15 = b 651 _0 Ceylon
008/14 = b 700 3_ Walz family 600 30

Heading cannot be used as a name. Heading only valid as a subject.

Error correction

Error corrected Error not corrected
Field tags (in some cases)

Miscoded subfields
Data entry errors, such as topics

Geographic subfields

When adding authority control to a geographic subfield (‡z), the system uses the 781 field, if available, then the 151 field. Because not all authority records currently contain 781 field, in some cases, a geographic subfield cannot be controlled in its correct form.