LDLR

The Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN) is a unique identifier assigned by the Library of Congress to the catalog records of books and other materials in its collection. The LCCN is used by libraries and publishers to identify and manage bibliographic information.

History

The LCCN system was introduced in 1898 as a means to organize and catalog the vast collections of the Library of Congress. Initially, it was used to manage the library's own holdings, but it has since become a standard identifier used by libraries worldwide.

Structure

The LCCN consists of a year and a serial number. The year is represented by two digits (for records created before 2001) or four digits (for records created from 2001 onwards). The serial number is a six-digit number, padded with leading zeros if necessary. For example, the LCCN "2001023456" indicates a record created in the year 2001 with the serial number 023456.

Usage

LCCNs are used in library catalogs to uniquely identify books and other materials. They are also used in ISBN records and other bibliographic databases. The LCCN is an essential tool for librarians and researchers to locate and reference specific works.

LCCN Permalink

The Library of Congress provides a service called LCCN Permalink, which allows users to create a stable URL for any LCCN. This service is useful for linking to specific records in the Library of Congress catalog from external websites or databases.

Also see

• Library of Congress Classification
• ISBN
• ISSN
• Dewey Decimal Classification

External links

• LCCN at the Library of Congress
• LCCN Permalink Service