Newly Published AACR2 2002
Integrates All New Amendments

The much-anticipated 2002 amendments to the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, 2nd ed. (AACR2), were published in October by ALA Editions (alastore.ala.org/). For the first time since 1998, ALA Editions also has made available an entirely new revision (AACR2 2002), integrating the base volume with all amendments up to and including 2002. AACR2 2002 is designed as a loose-leaf publication for easy updating with future amendments.

The Library of Congress has, naturally, written Rule Interpretations (LCRIs) of the new provisions in AACR2, which were implemented on December 1. The LCRIs are available in Numbers 97 and 98 of the Cataloging Service Bulletin; the LCRIs and AACR2 2002 are both available on the Library of Congress's CD-ROM product containing these and other tools frequently used by catalogers. The Cataloging Policy and Support Office of the Library of Congress discusses the significant changes in the new rules at one of its Web sites: lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/aacr2002.html.

Many library technical services staff consider the most significant change in AACR2 2002 to be the rewritten Chapter 12, formerly called "Serials," now titled "Continuing Resources." Chapter 12 now also encompasses "integrating resources," a category of resources newly defined in the new AACR2, though not at all new to libraries. An integrating resource is defined in the glossary of AACR2 as "a bibliographic resource that is added to or changed by means of updates that do not remain discrete and are integrated into the whole. Integrating resources can be finite or continuing. Examples of integrating resources include updating loose-leafs and updating Web sites."

In the print collections of libraries, an integrating resource has been an "updating loose- leaf," defined in AACR2 as "an integrating resource that consists of one or more base volumes updated by separate pages that are inserted, removed and/or substituted." Legal publishers have relied heavily on this type of format to keep up with changes in the law. With the rise of World Wide Web resources and other electronic resources that are updated frequently, catalogers perceived the need to revise AACR2 to include provisions for them. To handle updating loose-leafs in the past, prior to the 2002 amendments, catalogers had relied on Adele Hallam's book Cataloging Rules for the Description of Looseleaf Publications: With Special Emphasis on Legal Materials, which was based on AACR2 but included provisions to handle resources that were updated. These special rules are now considered unnecessary, and the newly revised AACR2 should be relied upon.

The Library of Congress' Program for Cooperative Cataloging is preparing materials for a day-long workshop in electronic integrating resources, and BCR hopes to offer the workshop in the spring of next year. Please check BCR's home page (www.bcr.org/) periodically for the announcement. Also watch Action for Libraries and BCR-L, BCR's electronic mail list.

The new Chapter 12 also alters some rules for the transcription of data for serial bibliographic records. The change that may be of greatest impact for serials catalogers are the rules for "title changes" — those circumstances requiring the creation of a new bibliographic record, according to successive entry cataloging practices, for a serial publication. New Rule 21.2A2 covers "minor changes" in a title proper. A "minor change" is one in which a change in the title proper does not trigger a new record. Some categories in the past had been considered "major" and would have meant a new record. The goal of these revisions is to decrease the number of new serial records and to bring AACR2 more in line with international practice and ISSN rules concerning "new" titles.

Map catalogers will also need to pay attention to several revisions and editorial changes in Chapter 3, but all catalogers will need to review Chapter 1. Rules for the transcription of the title proper (1.1B) now instruct catalogers to omit certain introductory words, and 1.4F8 contains provisions for publication dates for serials, integrating resources and multipart items.

The changes in AACR2 necessitated new and altered MARC coding. Update No. 2 (October 2001) to the MARC 21 Format for Bibliographic Data from the Library of Congress included among its changes several new codes for integrating resources, including "i" in Leader/07, Bibliographic level, a redefinition of fields 247 and 547 (for former title information for integrating resources) and validation of 310, 321, 362, 550, 580 and 760-787 for integrating resources. Information about the development of all the MARC formats may be found at www.loc.gov/marc/development.html.

OCLC and RLG will not implement many of the coding changes until mid-2003. Information for OCLC users about the transition to the new coding may be found in OCLC Technical Bulletin 247: OCLC-MARC Format Update 2002, available online at www.oclc.org/technicalbulletins/247/.

It's a good thing AACR2 2002 is an "updating loose- leaf" now, since the Joint Steering Committee for Revision of AACR (JSC) has already been working on the 2003 amendments. Information about the JSC's work may be found on its Web site at www.nlc-bnc.ca/jsc/. You may also learn about how to propose changes to AACR2 at this site.

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February 27, 2008
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