Audience note

The rules on this page have been approved in concept by the SCRAP committee, but the exact wording is still being adjusted. Please use these rules. Please send any feedback to SCRAP.

Use of the Audience Note (MARC 521 field) is strongly recommended for use in the CCS database when the information is readily available but is not required. The Audience note is especially useful for Reader Levels (RL) and Interest Levels (IL) for children's books, MPAA ratings for video recordings, ESRB ratings for video games, and recommended reader levels (e.g. "For mature readers" or "Teen 16+") for graphic novels. Lexile numbers are are also coded in this field, but have their own data entry guidelines.

If there is already a 521 field in a fully-cataloged record in the CCS catalog but the information does not appear on the item in hand, leave the note in the record. If there is already a 521 field in a full-MARC preliminary record in the CCS catalog or in an OCLC record being brought into the CCS catalog but the information does not appear on the item, please remove the note from the record.

Differences in the contents of the 521 field do not constitute warrant for a new record except for video games and video recordings, because a difference in the MPAA rating or the ESRB rating may indicate a significant difference in content. For everything else, if there is already a 521 field in a fully-cataloged record in the CCS catalog but the audience information on the item in hand is different, leave the old note in the record and add additional 521 fields as needed, quoted and qualified by the version. (e.g. "521 0_ "3.1"--1999 printing.)

If there are audience notes present in a record, or if you add them to a record, please make sure they make proper use of the indicator codes. Entry of this data in WorldCat is inconsistent, so local revision may often be needed. Note that "RL" and a number or number range on the item means "reader level" (second indicator 1), IL and a number or number range usually means "interest age level" (second indicator 1) but may occasionally instead be used for "interest grade level" (second indicator 2). The abbreviations "RL" and "IL" and the labels "For grades:" or "For ages:" should not be coded in the MARC record, because the indicators are used to generate the relevant labels.

Found in record	Locally change to this
521 _0 RL5.2	521 _0 5.2.
521 _0 7up.	521 _0 7 & up.
521 _1 For ages 007-010.	Either: 521 _1 007-010. Or:     521 _1 7-10.
521 __ RL5; 007-010; Guided Reading Level: V.	521 _0 5. 521 _1 7-10. 521 _8 Guided reading level: V.

External links

• 521 Note - Bibliographic Formats and Standards
• 521 Note - MARC21