GPO to Discontinue Assigning Library of Congress Classification Numbers in Records for Hearings and Reports

  • Last Updated: June 29, 2022
  • Published: June 29, 2022

The U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) has been adding Library of Congress Classification call numbers in bibliographic records for congressional hearings and reports for approximately 20 years. The Library of Congress (LOC) and the GPO recently held several meetings to discuss this practice, and the two agencies mutually agreed that the practice is no longer necessary. The LOC will continue to classify the hearings and reports, and the MARC 050 fields with Library of Congress Classification call numbers will continue to be present in the LOC and OCLC records.

GPO will stop manually assigning Library of Congress call numbers on July 1, 2022, and will explore automated options for adding LOC assigned call numbers to our records. If you have any questions, please submit them via askGPO in the “Cataloging/Metadata (Policy and Records)” category.