Search/Browse Help - Record Display and Availability

Full Record Display

Full Record labeled displays are the default display for individual records in the LC Catalog. Full Record displays include:

• Search Navigation or Refine Your Search: navigational links located at the top left of your screen that return you to your previous search. This label varies depending on how you arrived at your Full Record display:
  • Refine Your Search: link on Full Record displays when queries from Keyword Search and Advanced Search - as well as the Titles beginning with, Title (main) beginning with, LCCN, and Standard Numbers (LCCN-ISBN-ISSN) - return a single record result set (no Titles List is generated). Refine Your Search opens up the appropriate search page with limit options toggled open.
  • Search Navigation: drop-down menu on Full Record displays generated from Titles Lists with two or more results from Keyword Search, Advanced Search, and Browse queries. Search Navigation enables you to Refine Your Search, return to your Titles List, and, if appropriate, return to a Headings or Call Numbers Browse List. Selecting Refine Your Search opens up the appropriate Keyword Search, Advanced Search, or Browse page. Limit options are toggled opened, if available for your search.
• Previous and Next Record: navigational arrows that enable you to move record by record through your search results; located to the right of Search Navigation.
• Type of material: material type designation for the item described by your record; located above the main title and, on larger screen displays, as an icon on the right of your screen.
• Alternative record displays: links that enable you to toggle between a Full Record labeled display and a MARC Tags view; located above the Primary Bibliographic Information box.
• Primary Bibliographic Information: author/creator, main title, edition, and publisher/producer metadata, highlighted in a blue-bounded box near the top of your screen. When appropriate, this box also contains a Request this Item button for automated call slip, as well as a link to Availability and location information displayed below the bibliographic metadata. In addition, records for books and periodicals include an LC Find It button in this box to help you locate digital versions of the item described by the record.

  Note: Request This Item and LC Find It are replicated in a blue band at the bottom of your screen. On larger screens, Availability also appears in this blue band; on smaller screens, Availability becomes an accordion "drawer."

• Links: URLs to either digital versions of the item described by the record or to associated item information (such as publisher descriptions, tables of contents, or archival finding aids). On larger screens, Links appears directly below the Primary Bibliographic Information box; on smaller screens, these URLs are located in an accordion Links "drawer."
• LCCN Permalink: a persistent link to the LC Catalog record. For records assigned an LCCN (Library of Congress Control Number), this identifier is an LCCN Permalink; records without an LCCN display a permalink based on the LC Catalog system identifier. On smaller screens, LCCN Permalink is found in the More Information accordion "drawer."
• Additional Record Metadata: labeled display of the remaining bibliographic record description. You can launch "more like this" searches for authors/creators, titles, subjects, and name-titles to find related LC Catalog items. On smaller screens, this additional metadata appears in the More Information accordion "drawer."
• Print, Save, Email, Cite: services to print, save, email or cite record metadata. Records with LCCNs can also be exported in MARCXML and MODS formats. On larger screens, these services are located on the right side of the labeled bibliographic description; on smaller screens, they are found in the Print/Save/Email/Cite/Comments accordion "drawer."
• Report Errors, Ask A Librarian, LC Catalog Feedback: links to the LC Catalog error report and feedback forms, as well as to Ask A Librarian. On larger screens, these services are located on the right side of the labeled bibliographic description; on smaller screens, they are found in the Print/Save/Email/Cite/Comments accordion "drawer."

LC Find It

To help you locate ebooks and ejournals described in LC Catalog records, the Library of Congress uses OpenURLs – URLs that dynamically construct web searches for full text available either onsite at the Library or through fee-based and freely-accessible websites. When you are onsite at the Library, click the LC Find It button to locate full text content accessible from Library reading rooms. To assist offsite patrons, catalog records also embed "invisible" snippets of HTML code (called COInS) that enable browser plug-ins and reference citation software to build OpenURLs that link to eresources available from local institutions.

Request this Item

Registered readers may use the LC Catalog to request materials from the Library's general collections and from some special collections through Automated Call Slip (ACS). ACS offers delivery of materials only to the Library's Main, Science and Business, European, Hispanic, Law, and Performing Arts reading rooms. See the Guide for Requesting Materials in the Library's Catalog for additional information.

Availability: Library Holdings and Location Information

LC Call Number or Shelf Location

The call number or shelf location information needed to retrieve collection items. This information is usually followed by metadata identifying a specific copy. Clicking on a call number link launches a Call Numbers Browse search for records beginning with the same call number designation (often those in the same LC classification number).

Note that records in the LC Catalog often indicate that the Library holds one copy of a work, even though additional copies may actually be available in the Library's collections. The Library has initiated long-term projects to validate this displayed copy information.

Request in

The Library of Congress reading room or book service areas (including building name and room number) where the item must be requested. Items stored offsite require additional time to be delivered to the Library campus.

Status

Availability information for an item (whether it is charged, not charged, etc.)

Special Information about Periodical Holdings

Additional information that identifies periodical issues available in the Library's collections and the reading room or book service area where these issues should be requested. This holdings information - displayed on many (but not all) records for Library periodicals - may include the shelving title, bound volume and issue holding data, the latest and older unbound receipts, and notes about supplements and indexes.

Library of Congress Holdings Information Not Available

Legend displayed on LC Catalog records for:

• Items cataloged before they are published, through the Cataloging in Publication (CIP) program. Information on where to request the item will be added when the Library receives the actual material.
• Items that the Library is in the process of acquiring. Information on where to request the item will be added when the Library receives the actual material.
• Titles for which Library holdings and location information could not be created during migration from legacy systems to the LC Catalog. These records are being evaluated through long-term inventory projects.

MARC Tags Display

The MARC Tags record view displays bibliographic information in the MARC 21 communications format, a standard that enables exchange of bibliographic, holdings, authority, and other data among systems. Fixed- and variable-length MARC fields and content designation are presented as an HTML list, with fields ordered as the appear in the MARC data. The MARC Tags view displays the record leader; however, the MARC record directory can only be viewed when the record is downloaded in MARC ISO 2709 format.

Punctuation, Diacritics, Special Characters, Non-Latin Characters

Most marks of punctuation in your search query are converted to spaces. Some punctuation and diacritic marks are removed: apostrophes, alifs, ayns, middle dots, primes, and double primes. A few special characters, however, are retained in searches: ampersands (&), plus signs (+), at signs (@), number signs (#), and musical flat (♭) and natural (♮) signs (musical sharps are converted to spaces). Special characters are generally converted to their nearest alphabetic equivalent (for example: an æ diagraph to ae or a þ thorn to th).

Records in the LC Catalog use Unicode opens in a new window (UTF-8 encoding) for searching and displaying data. In addition to Latin scripts, catalog records may also contain the following languages/scripts: Chinese, Japanese, Korean; Cyrillic-based scripts; Greek; Hebrew, Yiddish; and Perso-Arabic script (e.g., Arabic, Persian, Pushto, Sindhi, Urdu). For more information, see Searching/Displaying Non-Latin Characters.

In general, your preferred web browser settings will not need to be changed to correctly view records that contain diacritics, special characters, or non-Latin characters. If you have problems, however, you may need to reconfigure your browser opens in a new window. Best results occur if you have Unicode fonts and use Unicode character encoding with automatic character encoding activated.