Cataloging Best Practices in Religion
The Best Practices in the Field of Religion Task Force was formed in 2013 and was tasked with creating resources for best practices for authority records in the field of religion. In addition, the task force reached out to the Catholic Library Association (CLA) and the Association of Christian Librarians (ACL) and asked them to join in this effort. This joint task force worked on two projects, Best Practices for Authority Records in the Field of Religion and Thesaurus of Religious Occupational Terms (TROT).
Best Practices for Authority Records in the Field of Religion
The purpose of this guide is to provide catalogers preparing authority records in the field of religion with suggested best practices relating to the optional fields in authority records. The goal of these suggestions is to bring some consistency and uniformity to the creation of new authority records and the upgrading to RDA of older records. These guidelines do not take the place of cataloger’s judgment in the creation and updating of records, but simply provide guidance in choosing whether or not to include particular information in a formal area. These guidelines also are not intended to replace PCC best practice guidelines and should be disregarded if the PCC has issued a best practice which conflicts.
Thesaurus of Religious Occupational Terms (TROT)
This Thesaurus was accepted by the Network Development and MARC Standards Office Library of Congress as an official standard. The accepted acronym for this Thesaurus is TROT. Terms from this thesaurus may begin to be used in the 374 field of personal name authority records beginning September 1, 2016.