Cataloguing FAQs (General)

If you have other questions or other answers you think are more appropriate, please write me.

Punctuation, date order, call numbers, etc.

Do subject headings need periods?

Our practice will be to put periods at the end of longer subject headings. Short, one-word subject headings need not have periods.

In what order are multiple dates listed in a MARC record (300 field)?

According to AACR2, the most recent date should appear first, e.g., New York : Scribner's, 1955, c1950.

When an item has multiple dates, which year do we use to construct the call number?

In general, choose a date by considering the following, in this order:

  1. Publication date as appears on the title page of a work

  2. Publication date as appears on the verso of the title page of a work

  3. Copyright date as appears on the title page of a work (this is rare)

  4. The latest copyright date as appears on the verso of the title page of a work

In more complicated cases, use the following trouble-shooter.

When are square brackets required?

When place of publication, publisher, or date information is taken from pages other than the title page or its verso, that information should be in square brackets. Also, when words in the title, subtitle or statement of responsibility are misspelled, the correct spelling should be put in square brackets.

Back to Cataloguing index page

Contact

Canadian Mennonite University Library