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Holdings Standards for Bibliographic Items, Z39.71-1999, was published last year. What changes will result for serials holdings statements? How is 71 different from its predecessors Z39.44 for serials and Z39.57 for non-serials?

History:

The first United States holdings standard Z39.42-1980 American National Standard for Serial Holdings Statements at the Summary Level was developed in the late '70s. The committee that drafted 42 collected boxes and boxes of printed serials union lists and, based on common practice in those lists, derived principles of what had generally worked well. The aim of 42 was to guide ILL borrowers, not to provide full inventory control of local serials. Users of OCLC's new interlibrary loan module felt the need to know more for a serial than its location — they needed to know which parts of the serial were held. When OCLC implemented Z39.42 in early 1980, it became, for an ANSI/NISO standard, a bestseller!

42 defined holdings standards for serials at the volume level as "summary holdings" (Level 3). It also allowed a holdings statement with minimal information: the optional Level 2 statement provided no volume information, only coded hints about roughly how much you held, whether you were still receiving the title, and whether you kept all or a limited part of what you received.

Z39.44-1986, Serial Holdings Statements, responded to the need for fully enumerated holdings, and defined both summary level (Level 3) and detailed level (Level 4) holdings for serials. OCLC union listing still allowed only summary-level holdings statements and eventually implemented Z39.44. Automated checkin systems and online public access catalogs were appearing; several systems used Z39.44. A few years, later, Z39.57-1989, Holdings Statements for Non-serial Items, was approved. In approach, it resembled 44, but to treat non-serial extent-of-holdings, it developed new categories: Name of Unit and Extent of Unit.

Because NISO standards must be reviewed after five years, in 1991 NISO commissioned a draft of a holdings standard to replace both 44 and 57, Proposed American National Standard Holdings Statements for Bibliographic Items, Z39.71-199X. It was voted on by the NISO community but was not approved. In 1994, a committee was appointed to look at the 1991 draft, and to resolve the problems identified in the 1991 ballot. Soon after they began their work, the international standard for serial and non-serial holdings at the summary level, ISO 10324, Holdings statements — Summary Level, became available. Since NISO encourages compatibility with relevant international standards, the committee started a new draft of Z39.71 based on ISO 10324, adding rules for detailed-level holdings.

Scope of Z39.71-1999:

According to the abstract at the beginning of 71, it covers the following:

It defines display requirements — how a holdings statement should look.

It defines display requirements for holdings statements which indicate what is held in your library, or in a shared collection of a group of libraries. It can be used in a regional union list or in your local catalog.

It defines display requirements for holdings statements for bibliographic items — anything which you can describe bibliographically, by cataloging rules.

It defines display requirements for holdings statements for bibliographic items in any physical or electronic medium. This includes electronic resources. These were not included in past standards which covered only entities in "any physical medium" (57) or "serials in all physical forms" (44).

It covers electronic resources . . . under [an institution's] control or available under other arrangements. "Under an institution's control" means resources in your library — a CD-ROM in the back of a book, or a CD-ROM or database file on a local server. "Available under other arrangements" further encompasses any file on a remote server, reached through the Internet or other means, including aggregators' collections of e-journals. This is obviously a concept new in 71. In the mid-1980s, electronic databases were far less important to library collections than they are today, and were more separate — few libraries tried to include them in catalogs. Only recently, with full-text journal databases that resemble and may substitute for printed journals, have we felt a strong need to show holdings for electronic databases.

It can be used for both manual and automated means of recording holdings, ranging from a handwritten or typed list to a database, perhaps formatted with MARC tags, in a computer.

The committee that wrote 71 was very aware of the number of holdings statements already in existence: more than seven million union listing holdings statements in OCLC and an unknown quantity in other regional lists and in local catalogs. It was important to keep those statements valid and usable, while establishing rules for new developments. Therefore, much of 71 is similar to its predecessors, and holdings statements created under earlier Z39 standards remain valid.

Changes to Terminology:

Z39.71 defines roughly the same six data areas as its predecessors, some with different names. The holdings statement must be linked to an Item Identification Area. This more general term comes from Z39.57; 42 and 44 holdings statements were linked to a "Serials Identification Area."

The area for coded or textual holdings information is now called the General Holdings Area. This term is closest to the term used in 42 and reflects the intention to provide general data about holdings. 44 and 57 called it "Status Data Area."

The note area, formerly called "Local Notes" now has a broader term: Holdings Note Area, since all holding information is local.

Changes to Data Elements:

The General Holdings Area is now optional; it had always been required in the past. Looking back at the OCLC union listing experience, the committee recognized that many interlibrary loan users did not understand the coded data, and that many groups chose the option to suppress the coded data in printed lists. Back in 1980, the General Holdings Data Area of 42 was intended to provide hints about how much was held in a Level 2 statement which didn't provide specific volume or year information. Over the years, it was found that most OCLC union list holdings statements did include volume/year information, so that the coded hints of Level 2 weren't needed. When the standard is used in a local system, volume/year information will almost always be present.

If you still use the General Holdings Area, some of its codes have changed. 44 and 57 distinguished between summary and detailed holdings statements. Type of Unit Designator in 71 no longer makes that distinction because "summary/detailed" isn't very meaningful for non-serial titles. If a computer system needs to know, the MARC Format distinguishes summary from detailed level. Instead, 71 uses those same Type of Unit Designator codes to distinguish the Basic Bibliographic Unit from a Secondary Bibliographic Unit such as a supplement or an index. This distinction may be useful to law libraries.

The Physical Form Designator in 71 now uses all the codes defined for the MARC Bibliographic Format 007 first two positions, rather than just some of them. This increases the number of formats you can identify. Since the MARC Bibliographic Format adds new formats when they develop, holdings statements will automatically be able to identify new formats without needing to change the standard.

The Acquisitions Status Designator successfully combines the serial and non-serial values of 44 and 57; the values don't clash.

One change to the Retention Designator brings the terminology up to date: "retained until replaced by microform" is now "retained until replaced by microform, or other preservation format."

The Extent of Holdings Area merged the serial and non-serial categories. In addition to Enumeration and Chronology, you now can use Extent of Unit [5 microfiches], Name of Unit ["Appendix" or "Charter" chap.1-74] and a Specific Extent Note in angle brackets ["Decisions" 1 v. <in binder>].

Captions, such as volume, Band, part, number, side (for a long-playing record), are "recommended but optional" in 71. In 42, they were forbidden, in 44 they were required in a detailed Level 4 statement, and required if available in a summary Level 3 statement. In 44, captions were to be repeated at both ends of a range [v.5-v.22]. In 71, it is now optional to repeat the caption at the end of the range [v.5-22]. However, in an itemized statement that records each unit, the caption is to be recorded before each unit [v.1 v.1A v.1B v.2 v.2A v.3]. New in 71, captions may be translated. 71 explains what to do with redundant captions such as bulletin no. 25, which may be recorded as bull. no.25, but optionally as bull.25 or no.25. This will work better with most automated check-in systems that don't have room for such long captions.

A non-gap break is a break in numbering or chronology "caused by unpublished parts or discontinuity in the publisher's sequential designations," and indicated by a semicolon. A semicolon can be used to indicate a change or other peculiarity in the method of numbering [no.1-no.8;v.3:no.1- ]. It was very important in 42 when captions were forbidden, but is less necessary when you can record captions. In 71, it is now optional to report a non-gap break.

71 allows two styles, without preference, of display of Enumeration and Chronology: separate [v.1-8 1990-1998] and adjacent [v.1(1990)-v.8(1998)]. 42 allowed only the separate style. 44 allowed both separate and adjacent styles for summary level statements, but required the adjacent style for detailed statements. In calling the adjacent style "Option A," 44 seemed to prefer it. Although 57 is the non-serial standard, it has instructions for enumeration in serial secondary bibliographic units (for example, an annual supplement to a monograph). Like 44, 57 allowed adjacent or separate styles for summary holdings statements, but required the adjacent style for its detailed statements.

Our automated systems may force you to use the separate style. At the present time, if you are fully coding holdings statements in the MARC Format, you must use the separate style because the 863/4/5 tags do not allow you to repeat enumeration or chronology subfields. You can code an adjacent holdings statement in the free-text MARC Textual Holdings 866/7/8 field.

Chronology, when displayed separately in 42 and 44, was not surrounded by parentheses, although the adjacent display used parentheses. 71 allows parentheses to surround chronology in a separate display. You, your consortium, or your system can decide whether or not to use parentheses to identify chronology.

New in 71 is the mixed-level holdings statement, which allows you to code part of the run of a serial at summary Level 3, and part at detailed Level 4. This facilitates conversion of older manual holdings records, which may not have enough information for a detailed holdings statement. You can then start to record the current or recent volume at detailed Level 4, perhaps automatically updated by a serials check-in system.

71 allows an open detailed Level 4 holdings statement, which allows an easily-understood compressed holdings statement that doesn't require maintenance. [v.5:no.1(1986:Jan.)-   ]. In 44, only summary Level 3 statements could be open; it seemed to have been assumed that a detailed Level 4 statement would be closed, kept current by an automatic check-in system. This was harder to do than expected, and is only now becoming fairly prevalent.

In 71, new series is to be recorded as new ser. rather than n.s., and it is to be separated from the next level caption by a colon [new ser.:v.1:no.1]. The longer abbreviation brings it into compliance with AACR2's Appendix B. The use of the colon and the longer abbreviation may be difficult to implement in some online check-in systems.

71 clarifies the use of punctuation which appears on a volume and is also part of the standard's punctuation scheme. One example is the hyphen, which represents a range of volumes in a compressed holdings statement, but may also appear as enumeration such as title 24:section 1-1 to section 16-1613. 71 allows you to use the hyphen in the middle of such enumeration and also allows the use of "to" if it clarifies the holdings statement.

In 44, you were required to record alternate numbering [v.1-v.3=no.1-no.36]. It is optional in 71 to record an alternate numbering scheme. The MARC format does allow coding of alternate numbering, but some check-in systems may not allow it at this time.

Alphabetic characters in enumeration [v.34ß [beta]] were to be romanized in 44 and 57. Looking forward to future developments in coding non-roman alphabets in library systems, 71 makes romanization optional.

Some titles are published with non-Gregorian dates (calendars other than the one we generally use in the United States). Both 71 and 44 require you, in summary Level 3 statements, to convert the dates to recognizable Gregorian years. New in 71 is the ability to record the non-Gregorian date — if it can be only one of two Gregorian dates — as "5757 [1996 or 1997]," rather than with a question mark. In 44 we would have recorded 5757 as "199?" which was less exact.

What about multiple versions? Where do you put holdings for a microform version of a journal, or an electronic journal? The standard's rules haven't changed, but cataloging rules are beginning to affect this. We are told very clearly in 71: "This standard allows for the inclusion of information about bibliographic items in different physical and/or electronic media within a single holdings statement when only one applicable item identifier exists (for example, because only a single bibliographic record was created.)" "Separate holdings statements are required when materials are described in two or more bibliographic records." AACR2R still requires separate bibliographic records for microforms and print serials. But the 1996 "CONSER Single Record Option" for online serials allows you to use one bibliographic record for a serial in both print and electronic formats. If you have one bibliographic record, you have one item identifier, and you can have one holdings statement for both formats. In practice, you may want to create two holdings statements attached to one bibliographic record.

Note: Ellen Rappaport was co-chair of NISO Standards Committee SC AL which developed Z39.71-1999.

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