Alma: Removal of Field 655 “Electronic” content types

Removal of Field 655 “Electronic” content types in Alma Community Zone Records

Following consultation with the Community Zone Management Group (CZMG), and the announcement of these fields’ removal in OCLC WorldCat, Ex Libris will be removing a number of 655 genre/form headings from Community Zone records relating to “Electronic” content types.

As noted in OCLC’s announcement, the 655 “Electronic books” and similar headings have become redundant, with indication of electronic content type available in several other MARC 21 fields (Control fields 008, 006 and 007, as well as fields 300 and 33X).

Please also see OCLC’s announcement on the removal of similar headings (“Electronic article,” etc.) here: Follow-up on removal of 655 "Electronic books" in WorldCat records

Scope

If the 655 “Electronic” genre/form heading is coded as sourced from LCSH, LCGFT, or an uncontrolled or local vocabulary, these will no longer be added to new Community Zone MARC enrichments in November/December 2022.

In addition, we plan to start removing them from existing Community Zone records in December 2022.

For example, the following 655 “Electronic books” fields will be removed (with or without ending punctuation):

• 655 _ 0 Electronic books

• 655 _7 Electronic books $2 lcgft

• 655 _ 4 Electronic books

• 655 _7 Electronic books $2 local

And similar 655 headings will also be targeted for removal (in singular and plural forms):

• Electronic article

• Electronic audio book

• Electronic audiobook

• Electronic book

• Electronic dictionar…   

• Electronic director…     

• Electronic dissertation

• Electronic document

• Electronic encyclopedia

• Electronic government information

• Electronic government publication

• Electronic handbook

• Electronic journal

• Electronic manuscript

• Electronic map

• Electronic masters project

• Electronic newsletter

• Electronic newspaper

• Electronic publication

• Electronic score

• Electronic serial

• Electronic student paper

• Electronic text

• Electronic theses

• Electronic thesis

Additional notes

• Provider Zone: bibliographic records “Managed by” providers directly will not be impacted by this initiative, and their 655 fields will stay the same.

• Contributed records: bibliographic records Contributed by the Community will be included in the 655 “Electronic” terms removal process.

• Article last edited: 27-October-2022