At the request of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging Steering Committee, the Library of Congress Network Development and MARC Standards Office has approved the USMARC identification code "DPCC" for use in series authority records created by LC staff and by NACO participants to indicate national-level tracing practice.

BIBCO participants who create records for items in series are directed to follow the national tracing practice indicated by presence of "$5 DPCC" in the 642 and 645 fields in series authority records (SARs) in the national authority file to assure consistency in the presence and form of series access points. The default national-level tracing decision will be to trace.

Background for decision:

The treatment of series items varies from one library to another (if items are analyzed, if items are classified separately or as a collection, if an access point is included in analytic records) depending upon local needs and limitations. LC's local tracing practice has been the de facto "national" tracing practice for many years. However, considering LC's local tracing decision to be the national tracing decision causes the following problems in the context of BIBCO records:

1. Many BIBCO participants are doing retrospective cataloging for items in series processed by LC before LC changed its default tracing decision to "trace" in 1989 (at the request of other libraries) or even before LC changed its default analysis decision to "analyze in full" in 1971.

2. Due to increasing quantities of publications and a decreasing number of catalogers at LC, exceptions to the default decision of "analyze in full" are being made at LC to not analyze some series. Many BIBCO participants want to catalog at least some items in these series and want to include access points for the series in the BIBCO analytic records. However, LC's local tracing decision for these non-analyzed series is coded "n" for "not traced."

3. LC generally does not catalog issues of periodicals and does not create SARs for periodicals. Some BIBCO participants want to be able to catalog specific issues of periodicals for local reasons and want to include access points for the periodical in the BIBCO analytic records. However, if an SAR were created, LC's local tracing decision would be "n" for "not traced."

Implementation:

New SARs: All LC staff and NACO SAR contributors will include national-level tracing practice in the 645 field as shown below in SARs for monographic series, multipart items, and other series (serial) regardless of that institution's local tracing decision. If the series is numbered, the national-level decision for form of numbering will be given in a 642 field.

			642 $a [form of number in access point] $5 DPCC
			645 $a t $5 DPCC

LC will add its local tracing practice to the new SAR; a NACO participant has the option to add its local tracing practice to the new SAR.

			642 $a [form of number in access point] $5 DPCC $5 DLC
			645 $a t $5 DPCC $5 DLC

			642 $a [form of number in access point] $5 DPCC $5 IaRedo
			645 $a t $5 DPCC $5 IaRedo

Existing SARs: The national-level tracing practice information will be added in 645 and 642 fields as appropriate in existing SARs via a project managed by LC's Cataloging Policy and Support Office.

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