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Creating Pre-Cats for Audiovisual Materials

Audiovisual materials require extra care to avoid duplicate records. Because of the diversity of formats (Blu-Ray, DVD, Combo Pack, 4K Blu-ray, and others) we recommend searching by UPC/ISBN and title, before entering a pre-cat.      

Required fields 

024- UPC (required if applicable)

List only one UPC per field, omitting spaces and hyphens. 

If the item has a UPC and ISBN, add a 020 tag for the ISBN. 

In the example below, enter the UPC 012345678905. 

UPC example

028 - Manufacturer, publisher or distributor number (optional)

This is a formatted number used for sound recordings, printed music, and other music-related materials, and video recordings. 

Enter as much information as possible to describe your item. In the absence of a UPC or manufacturer, publisher, or distributor number, even the Amazon standard number (ASIN) is helpful and can be entered in a 500 tag.

100 - Author (required if applicable)

Video recordings generally do not have a primary creator recorded in the 100 tag.  Directors and actors are entered in a 700 tag with first indicator 1, following the rule of last name, first name.   

Directors are considered the primary creators and should appear in the first 700 tag. 

245 - Title statement (required)

See Creating a Pre-Cat. 

250 - Edition statement (required if applicable)

Use this field to record console information for video games, the different editions of DVDs, Blu-Rays, and audiobooks. For example: Xbox, Wii, Anniversary edition, Director's cut edition, Widescreen, DVD/Blu-Ray combo pack and others. 

The record can have multiple 250 edition statement tags. 

264 - Publication information (required). 

See Creating a Pre-Cat. 

300 - Physical description (required)

Record the number of discs and duration.

If you do not know the number of discs, please enter just "discs."

For DVD/Blu-Ray combo packs, please describe it as:

Example :     300 __ 1 Blu-Ray disc (approximately __min.) :|bsound, color ;|c4 3/4 in. + |e 1 videodisc (DVD).

511 - Participant or performer (required if applicable) 

Commonly used for audiobooks, Playaways, and CD MP3s, record information about participants, players, narrators, presenters and performers. 

This is a freestyle writing tag, so you can add introductory terms such as "Read by", "Narrated by", "voices", "presenter", etc.   

Example:  511 __ Narrated by Morgan Freeman.  

590 - Format

Enter one of the controlled vocabulary terms according to the format: 590 Field Terminology

Every format, EXCEPT standard print books, must have a 590 tag.

500 - Notes tag (optional)

Use this tag to add information that does not "fit" into any other tag. Commonly used in combo packs or for materials that were part of a combo pack: 

500 Part of a combo pack. 

500 Blu-Ray/DVD combo pack 

946 - Signature tag

The 946 is a required pre-cat tag. It contains your library three-letter code, your initials, and the date the pre-cat was created. 

Enter it in this format: 

Library 3-letter code/your initials/YYYYMMDD

Example:

BYS/AB/20240131

977 - PRE-CAT

The 977 PRE-CAT (in CAPS) is automatically added to pre-cat records. If your library uses Acquisitions, please make sure vendor records include the 977 tag.