Oh, Those Notes

Yes, there is a correct order for notes, according to AACR2. Or in MARC-speak 5XX fields. Although if you look at a dozen or so bibliographic records, you probably wouldn't know what the order is.

AACR2 prescribes a specific order; it's given in the Note Area (X.7) of each section. If you think of the bibliographic record, the notes follow the same pattern. You begin with the title, then subtitle, statement of responsibility, edition, place of publication, publisher, date, extent of item, etc. Any notes having to do with the entire item come first (Scope, Language, System Requirements), then notes about the title (e.g. Source of title), subtitle, statement of responsibility, edition, place of publication, publisher, date, extent of item, etc.

However, when MARC tags were assigned to these various notes, they were not assigned in numerical order. Therefore, the Systems Requirement note is 538 and the Language note is 546 even though they are the first notes. For a videorecording, the note about Cast (Actors; 511) comes before the note about Credits (Cinematographer; 508).

In creating original bib records on OCLC, some catalogers list notes according to AACR2 rules in which case the MARC tags are in no discernable order. Other catalogers don't know about AACR2 order and create notes in numerical MARC order. When downloading a bib record from OCLC, some ILSs shuffle the MARC tags into numerical order even if that's not the way the record was created. No wonder catalogers are confused!

Recently on AUTOCAT, I learned of 2 sites (Penn State and Brigham Young University) that provide guidance for the correct order of notes. I've added them to the cataloger's pages under Sites for Catalogers on the CMRLS website. If you're one of the many people confused about note order, these sites are a great help.