When cataloguing an item from a series, are you ever confused by why you need to put the “series title” in both the MARC 490 and MARC 830 fields?
I remember being told to “just do it” by teachers and library staff, but in actuality…these fields have very different purposes. I was reminded of this today when someone asked if Koha supported MARC Authorities for Series. At first, I was confounded. Authority records for series? That seemed bizarre. Then I realized…they meant does Koha support MARC Authorities for uniform titles…
Here is the general info from the Library of Congress:
490 – Series Statement (R)
http://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/bd490.html
830 – Series Added Entry-Uniform Title (R)
http://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/bd830.html
The key to it all resides in a footnote on the 490 page:
Indicator 1 – Series tracing policy
1 – Series traced [REDEFINED, 2008]
Prior to 2009, series for which the transcribed form and the traced form were the same were in field 440, and field 490 was not used. If the transcribed form and the traced form were different, the transcribed form was in field 490 and Indicator 1 had value “1” (Series traced differently) The traced form was in an 8XX field. Beginning in 2009, field 440 is not used and the transcribed form of the series name is in field 490 with the traced form in 8XX, even if the names are the same.
In other words, if you have an authority record for the uniform title of a series, the title from that authority record (MARC 130 – Heading-Uniform Title (NR) in the authority record) will go in the 830 field, and the transcribed form (i.e. the series title that appears on the title page/source of information) will go in the 490 field. You’ll then change the first indicator for 490 to 1 (as mentioned above) and you’re all good!