Cataloging Procedures for Federal Documents

Revised 12/5/06

CATALOGING PROCEDURES FOR FEDERAL DOCUMENTS

Government documents are received, checked-in, processed, and shelved by the Government Documents Department. The bib records for new federal government documents are sent to the Voyager system via FTP by Marcive. The mfhds and item records are automatically generated when the records are placed in Voyager. The Cataloging Department generally does not have to concern itself with federal government documents.

However, there may be occasions when the Cataloging Department works with federal documents: when they are received as gifts, if we do not receive a record from MARCIVE for a document, or if corrections need to be made to records received from MARCIVE.

The Government Documents Librarian or Assistant will notify you when an item received through the depository program needs modifying. However, we should be on the lookout for government documents while processing gifts.

GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS RECEIVED AS GIFTS: The Cataloging Dept. should watch for government documents received as gifts. We don’t receive them very often, but we should be looking out for items that may be government documents as we process gifts.

If an item appears to be a government document (federal or state), give to the Cataloger. If we determine that it is a government document or cannot be sure, the Cataloger will consult the Government Documents Librarian. If an item is a government document, the Government Documents Librarian and/or the liaison may need to determine whether it should be placed in the Government Documents collection or the LC collection.

If a government document gift is received that we determine is a duplicate of an item already in the collection, check with the Government Documents Librarian about whether to keep the gift copy.

Some clues to help identify a government document:

 Presence of SuDoc number in record: 086 tag (there may also be an LC call no. present)  Publisher or corporate author appears to be a government agency  008 has a "Gov't Publications" field: Blank is not a gov't publication; f=federal document; s=state document, etc.

If we decide to keep a gov doc gift but the liaison determines that it should be placed in the LC collection, catalog and process as you would any other book. Click on the pie chart in the item record and indicate that the item was a gift. If you don’t have an LC call number, give to the Cataloger.

If we keep a gov doc gift but it will be placed in the Gov Docs collection:  Edit the bib record as usual  Copy the SuDoc number into the mfhd and change the 852 first indicator to 3. Revised 12/5/06

 Make sure the location is Docs-circ (or the appropriate docs location) 852:3 : ‡b Docs-circ ‡h D 114.7:M 58/V.1  Create item record. Scan barcode as usual.  Change Permanent Location to the appropriate Docs location. Refer to the Locations list for the correct item type (most federal documents will be Circulating).  Click on the pie chart in the item record and indicate that the item was a gift. (For items in the gov docs collection, it is important to note when they are received as gifts. Gifts may be withdrawn at our own discretion, while items received through the depository program may not be withdrawn without approval from the regional librarian.)