Dealing With Existing Non-RDA Authorized Access Points For Treaties

BEST PRACTICES – CATALOGING

Prepared by:
American Association of Law Libraries
Technical Services Special Interest Section
Descriptive Cataloging Advisory Working Group (DCAG)

Last revised: 12/8/2015

These guidelines are intended for the use of PCC libraries that need to use an authorized access point for a treaty that is in the authority file in a pre-RDA form or that has been coded for RDA but does not follow current standards.

PREFERRED TITLE

For treaties that were formerly entered under a jurisdiction and the uniform title “Treaties, etc.” it may be difficult to determine from the authority record what the preferred title of the treaty is. Use information from the item in hand and reference sources such as the United Nations Treaty Collection as appropriate.

DATES AS ADDITIONS

  • Expand to full date if available.
  • If the date is not available in the NAR, do a reasonable amount of research, depending upon the resources available in the library.

FORMER HEADING

  • Put the former heading for the treaty in a 4XX field with subfield $w nnea, even if the only difference is the form of the date.

    430 _0  Treaty on European Union $d (1992) $w nnea
    410 1_  Canada. $t Treaties, etc. $d 1992 Oct. 7 $w nnea

VARIANT ACCESS POINTS

  • Variant access points must be in RDA form, except those for previously established authorized access points with subfield $w.
  • If the authority record is for a bilateral or trilateral treaty, include variant access points from each participant to the treaty, followed by the preferred title of the treaty.
  • Add any other variant access points that can assist the user.

046 FIELD

  • Put date of treaty in 046 $k

370 FIELD (OPTIONAL)

  • Give the place of origin of the treaty, if known.

    130  Treaty of Antwerp $d (1609 April 9)
    370  $g Antwerp (Belgium) $2 naf

380 FIELD (OPTIONAL)

  • Give the form of the work.

    380  Treaties $2 lcgft

EXAMPLE

BEFORE

110 1_  Canada. $t Treaties, etc. $d 1992 October 7
430 _0  North American Free Trade Agreement $d (1992 October 7)
etc.

AFTER

046   $k 1992-12-17 $2 edtf
130 _0 North American Free Trade Agreement $d (1992 December 17)
380 __ Treaties $2 lcgft
410 1_ Canada. $t Treaties, etc. $d 1992 October 7 $w nnea
410 1_ Canada. $t North American Free Trade Agreement $d (1992 December 17)
410 1_ Mexico. $t North American Free Trade Agreement $d (1992 December 17)
410 1_ United States. $t North American Free Trade Agreement $d (1992 December 17)
etc.