Library of Congress Authority Records for Forms and Genres

October, 2007

The Library of Congress began to distribute LCSH genre/form authority records (tagged 155) with a small number in the September 11, 2007 weekly distribution. LTI is currently retaining and analyzing these records, preparing to incorporate the official records into existing processing, Though LTI has authorized genre and form headings in 655 fields tagged as LC headings, no official authority records existed prior to this date and, therefore, none were supplied to libraries by LTI.

As LC distributes these authority records, they will be used in LTI processing. These authority records will be supplied to the library in a separate file. Unlinked headings will continue to be shown in a separate section of the "unlinked headings" list and counted separately on the *.acf report.

Authorization of genre headings may be added to an existing profile at no additional cost. Default tagging of 655 fields based on the LC thesaurus is:

655 0 $a

LTI will continue to authorize headings from the GSAFD list, if source bib records contain them. Tagging in the output bib record is:

655 7 $a.... $2gsafd

No file of GSAFD authority records is provided to the library. If wanted, the entire file of authority records is available for free download from the ALA ALCTS website.

If you have questions or wish to add genre heading processing to your library's profile, please contact Marsha A. Hunt at LTI.