Field 039 was made obsolete in 1986 when Leader/17 (Encoding level) code 7 was redefined to identify cataloging that conforms to national minimal level requirements.  Field 039 was defined in 1980 to allow an organization to characterize the fullness of various cataloging aspects of records contributed to a national database.

The first indicator position specified the standard against which the data were applied (0 = U.S. national level bibliographic record; 8 = Other); the second indicator was undefined.  The subfield codes and the defined codes for each were:  $a Level of rules used in bibliographic description (0 = No level defined by rules, 1 = Minimal, 2 = Less than full, 3 = Full); $b Level of effort used to assign nonsubject heading access points (2 = Less than full, 3 = Full); $c Level of effort used to assign subject headings (0 = None, 2 = Less than full, 3 = Full); $d Level of effort used to assign classification (0 = None, 2 = Less than full, 3 = Full); and $e Number of fixed field character positions coded (0 = None, 1 = Minimal, 2 = Most necessary, 3 = Full).