Genre and Form subject headings - LC Policy

From OCLC List (email 16/06/10) New LC thesaurus
GENRE AND FORM HEADINGS (LC Changes 2010/2011)
In 2007 the Library of Congress’ Policy and Standards Division (PSD, then called the Cataloging Policy and Support Office, or CPSO) began to develop genre/form terms.
PSD’s intent has been to develop a thesaurus distinct from Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), but for the past three years the authority records have been assigned MARC 21 coding indicating that they are part of LCSH. When the terms have been assigned in bibliographic records, they have been coded with second indicator “0” (zero), which is used for LCSH. They have also been assigned LCCNs with the same prefix as subject headings, “sh.” Additionally, approved genre/form terms have been published in the Supplementary Vocabularies volume of LCSH and instruction sheets governing their development and use have appeared in the Subject Headings Manual (SHM)
On May 26, 2010 the Network Development and MARC Standards Office (NDMSO) announced that it has assigned the MARC source code “lcgft” to the thesaurus. The code may be used in exchange records after July 27, 2010 (for the NDMSO announcement see http://www.loc.gov/marc/relators/tn100526src.html).

MARC 21 records
Authority records for genre/form terms will be coded as follows.

008/11: z (“Other”)

040$f: lcgft

In bibliographic records, genre/form terms are always contained in the 655 field, and again there are two methods to designate the source thesaurus: the value of the second indicator, or a combination of second indicator “7” and a source code in subfield $2. PSD has chosen the latter option. LC genre/form terms in bibliographic records will be coded:

655 -7 $a [Term]. $2 lcgft

Timeline for implementation: Late 2010 or early 2011

LCCNs

PSD plans to institute a new prefix of “gf” for genre/form terms. The format of the new LCCN will be identical to that for subject headings: the two-character prefix will be followed by 10 digits comprising the four-digit year and a six-digit serial number.

*Documentation

A separate manual for genre/form terms is being written. It will include instructions and guidelines on proposing and applying LC genre/form headings, and will be formatted similar to the way that the SHM is. (Until it is developed, instruction sheets for genre/form headings will continue to reside in the SHM.)