015  National Bibliography Number (R)

Definition

The entry number for an item found in a national bibliography outside the United States. An item may have multiple numbers from a single national bibliography or may have multiple numbers from more than one national bibliography. Multiple numbers are recorded in separate 015 fields.

If LC derives its cataloging data from a national bibliography, LC cataloging copy includes the national bibliography number. Each number may have a one-to-four letters designating the country, a space, an indication of the year, and a serial number.

If the number is a bibliographic record control number used by a national library, rather than an official national bibliography number, use field 016. If the number is a PL 480 or LACAP number, use field 025. If the number is for materials acquired in Africa, which have accession numbers similar in form to national bibliography numbers, use field 025.

Guidelines

Use the following guidelines:

• Omit spaces between alphabetic and numeric portions of the number.

  Source	Enter
  It 67-3785	015    It67-3785 ǂ2 bni

• Omit parentheses enclosing the number.

  Source	Enter
  (Sw 66-A-2196)	015    Sw66-A-2196 ǂ2 szb

• Enter binding or volume qualifiers in subfield ǂq.

  Source	Enter
  (v. 1: S74-20)	015    S74-20 ǂq (v. 1) ǂ2 sbf

• Omit punctuation separating two numbers. Enter each number in a separate 015 field.

  Source	Enter
  (jil. 1-6: M 95-1568; jil. 7: M 00-960)	015    M95-1568 ǂq (jil. 1-6) 015    M00-960 ǂq (jil. 7)

• If the number is part of the Bibliographie nationale française, omit the prefixes F and FR and add a leading zero to any two-digit representation of the year. Omit any hyphens separating the year and serial number, and supply leading zeros to any serial numbers shorter than five digits. Add the source code bnf in subfield ǂ2.

  Source	Enter
  (F 75-3458)	015    07503458 ǂ2 bnf

• If the number is part of the British National Bibliography, use the prefix GB in place of B followed by the two characters representing the year. Omit any hyphens separating the year and serial number, and supply leading zeros to any serial numbers shorter than five digits. Add the source code bnb in subfield ǂ2. For more information about the structure of British national bibliography numbers, see Structure of the BNB Number.

  Source	Enter
  (B 67-987)	015    GB6700987 ǂ2 bnb

• If the number consists of a prefix followed by three asterisks, omit the number.

1st Indicator

Undefined. The 1st indicator position is undefined and contains a blank.

2nd Indicator

Undefined. The 2nd indicator position is undefined and contains a blank.

Subfields

Punctuation

In records containing punctuation, enclose data in a single occurrence of subfield ǂq in parentheses. Enclose data in multiple occurrences of subfield ǂq in one set of parentheses and separate individual occurrences of subfield ǂq with a space, semicolon, space. Omit any punctuation from the end of the field unless it ends with an ellipsis, hyphen, closing parenthesis, exclamation point, question mark, or period following an abbreviation.

Indexing

For indexing and searching information, see Searching WorldCat Indexes, field 015.

MARC 21

For more information, including content designator history, see MARC 21 Format for Bibliographic Data, field 015.