BibFormats

Biog:  Biography

Record Type

BIB

Bytes

BKS: 008/34; 006/17

Input Standards

BKS: Optional. One-character code. Default:  blank character

Definition

 
BKS, 006

A code that indicates whether or not an item contains biographical material, and if so, what the biographical characteristics are.

Guidelines

 
BKS

The following types of material are biographical:

  • Straightforward accounts of the life of a person (character, thought, and activities).
  • Accounts of limited periods or aspects of the life of a person (e.g., Goethe as a government official). Collections of materials that serve as a source of or substitute for an account of a life. These include: (1) collections of correspondence unless they clearly relate to a particular subject or to an event not in the life of the writer (2) journals and diaries and (3) memoirs or reminiscences. Collective biographies.
  • Literary criticism if more than half of the work is biographical.
  • A work about a ruler and his or her reign if the ruler's life is given considerable attention.
  • A work about a doctrine or movement if the work is largely biographical.

The following are not biographical:

  • Documents relating to a person's life (birth, marriage and death certificates, commissions, diplomas, etc.). Obituaries, funeral orations, eulogies.
  • Collections of portraits unless accompanied by substantial biographical description.
  • Interviews and conversations.
  • Bio-bibliographies.
  • Genealogies.
  • A vita within a work does not qualify the work as biographical. However, a biographical work may have a vita.

Codes

 
 
blank character

No biographical material. Use also for fictional biography.

Biog     blank character
245 0 0 Dictionary of Russian verbs
Biog     blank character
245 1 0 Am I not a man? : ǂb the Dred Scott story / ǂc by Mark L. Shurtleff
600 1 0 Scott, Dred, ǂd 1809-1858 ǂv Fiction
 
a

Autobiography

Biog     a
100 1   Kennedy, Robert F. ǂq (Robert Francis), ǂd 1925-1968
245 1 Robert Kennedy : ǂb in his own words ...
 
b

Individual biography

Biog     b
100 1   Dampenon, Philippe
245 1 Michel Sardou / ǂc par Philippe Dampenon
 
c

Collective biography. Items containing two or more individual biographies.

Biog     c
245 Oxford dictionary of national biography : ǂb in association with the British Academy : from the earliest times to the year 2000 / ǂc edited by H.C.G. Matthew and Brian Harrison
 
d

Contains biographical information

Biog     d
245 Correspondance inédite de Victor Jacquemont avec sa famille et ses amis, 1824-1832 : ǂb précédée: d'une notice biographique / ǂc par V. Jacquemont ...
 
fill character

No attempt to code

Indexing

For indexing and searching information, see Searching WorldCat Indexes, Field 008.

MARC 21

For more information, including content designator history, see MARC 21 Format for Bibliographic Data, 008/34 (Books).