Summary note

Summary notes (MARC tag 520) are required for all children's materials. They are also recommended for all materials whose contents cannot be physically browsed, such as audiobooks and videorecordings. A summary note is not required if an existing contents note is descriptive of the nature and the scope of the work.

For guidelines on how to write a good summary, see Library of Congress CIP guidelines for summaries and Writing Summaries: Children’s and Young Adults’ Cataloging Program (CYAC). There are additional examples of acceptable and unacceptable summaries in an older version of the CIP guidelines. Further guidelines for writing summary notes, including specific guidance for motion pictures and video recordings, can be found on p. 160 of OLAC's Best Practices for Cataloging DVD-video and Blu-ray discs.