Major Differences Between Third and Fourth Editions

1 Major New or Revised Areas
2 New Fields

The fourth edition of Bibliographic Formats and Standards (September 2008) is a complete revision of the entire book. In addition to incorporating the relevant information from all technical bulletins, highlights of the revision include the items below.

Information explaining new coding for Continuing/Integrating Resources can be found in BLvl, Type, S/L   Entry Convention, field 247 and throughout the document.

OCLC introduced new guidelines for Abbreviated level records (Encoding Level 3 records) in 2008 in Technical Bulletin 256. These have now been incorporated into Chapter 2, along with a chart comparing the different encoding levels. See Chapter 2 (Online Cataloging), 2.4 Full, Core, Minimal and Abbreviated-Level Cataloging.

The discussion of parallel records (records with different languages of cataloging noted in field 040, subfield b) has been significantly expanded to include:

• Examples of correctly coded records, incorrectly coded records, and hybrid records
• Instructions for correcting or reporting parallel record errors
• The policy change eliminating the vendor exception (previously documented in Technical Bulletin 250). Vendor records are now treated exactly like all other records in regard to language of cataloging.

See Chapter 3 (Special Cataloging Guidelines), 3.10 Parallel Records for Language of Cataloging.

Additional fields that libraries can add to full-level records have been added to the "Fields you can add or edit" table in Chapter 5 (Quality Assurance), 5.3 Database Enrichment.

Added examples and explanations for 10- and 13-digit ISBNs, as well as EANs (international article numbers) are found in fields 020 and 024.

The fields below are new in the fourth edition.