Spelling and punctuation conventions for retrospective conversion

These instructions document past practice for retrospective conversion of catalog cards.

Do not follow these instructions in current work.


act, scene, line Spell out when devising a title or making a note. Use Arabic numerals and commas. (For capitalization and punctuation in authorized access points, follow RDA and LC/PCC policy standards.) Twelfth night, act 2, scene 1, line 5
after Not 'ff.' or 'follows' or 'following'
ART All caps when part of call number
copy Not 'c.' or 'cop.' Also for copies, as in copy 2-3; not capitalized, use a space after the word copy
cs[no.] When recording 'case numbers' omit any punctuation or space between the 'cs' and the number: e.g., cs 46 becomes cs46
Ex.ill. No space after first period, no hyphen, lowercase 'i'
fol. Folio; not 'f.' or 'fo' or 'fo.' or 'folio' when describing a leaf; BUT: folio when describing the shelf location) [art]
fol./fols In a call number use fol. when referring to one or more numbered leaves within an item) [ms]
folio When it is part of a shelf location [ms]
leaf/leaves Use for 'f.', 'fol.' in 3xx and 5xx fields [ms]; use for "sig." in notes when referring to a leaf by its signature reference notation [books]
ms./mss. Manuscript/manuscripts; (not MS or MSS) NSS: been using in 3xx (e.g. "1 ms. score"), but generally spelling out entire word in notes.
MS When part of accession records beginning MS Add
no. Number/numbers; not 'nos.' or 'num.'
p. Page, pages in AACR2 3XX fields; spelled out in RDA and notes.
PHOTO All caps when part of call number, not 'Photo.' as on some cards
v. For volume/volumes when used in 3XX fields and call numbers
Vol. For volume, when in an ART Vol. call number [art]
vs. Various; shows up in case number call numbers