With the redefinition of field 016 in 1997, any national bibliographic agency can record its control number in this field.  Although the structure of numbers would vary from agency to agency, extensive use of field 016 has been made by the Library and Archives Canada.  Their control number structure is given below.

The language code [character position 09 (the 10th character in the string)] identifies, with a code "E" (English) or "F" (French), a bilingual heading for which two separate authority records, one in English, the other in French, are produced.

The LAC control number is carried in fields 016 subfield $a and 001 (Control Number) in records distributed by LAC's MARC Records Distribution Service.

Control Number Structure

Name of element

Number of characters

Character position in field

Number

4

00 - 03

Check digit

1

04

Number

4

05 - 08

Language code

1

09

Blank

1

10

Revision indicator

variable

11 - n

To return, select:

016  National Bibliographic Agency Control Number