The U.S. Government Printing Office is modifying a cataloging practice for serial titles. This change will impact fields of the MARC cataloging record. Staff will now be using the 776 MARC field to link records for serial titles in various formats. The use of the 780/785 MARC field will not be used, as was past practice, unless one version actually is discontinued and is continued by a new version. The change in practice is consistent with CONSER practice as stated in the CONSER Editing Guide and CONSER Cataloging Manual.

New instructions outlining this practice change have been written and are designed to supplement the section titled “Linking Fields” in the GPO Cataloging Guidelines. The GPO Cataloging Guidelines as well as updates are available as a single file with bookmarks. Effective immediately, all new serial records created will have this change.  Modifications to previous serial records with 780/785 links will not be made unless staff are modifying the record for other purposes.