Section on Bibliography

Review of activities 1998-1999

by
Françoise BOURDON
Secretary/Treasurer of the Section on bibliography
Bibliothèque nationale de France

Scope of the Section on bibliography

The Section on Bibliography is primarily concerned with the content, arrangement, production, dissemination and preservation of bibliographic information, especially (but not exclusively) where these pertain to national bibliographic services. It is also concerned with the promotion of the importance of the discipline of bibliography to library professionals in all types of library (not just national libraries), to publishers, distributors and retailers and also to end-users. Whilst taking full account of technological possibilities, the Section is aware that such developments are not yet available in some areas of the world, and it will ensure that its solutions are not necessarily dependent on particular technologies. The Section is closely associated, where appropriate, not only with the other Sections within the Division of Bibliographic Control and with the UBCIM Programme, but also with the Sections on Information Technology and of National Libraries.
(Medium Term Programme, 1998-2001)

Membership of the Section and of the Standing Committee

105 associations and institutions were members of the Section on 1^st August 1998.

Resulting from the Spring 1999 nominations, the members of the new Standing Committee for the period 1999-2001 are : 16 full members, 4 corresponding members and 1 honorary advisor. 5 full members for the period 1995-1999 will complete their term during the Bangkok conference in August 1999.

Full members of the Standing Committee are from 15 different countries : Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, United States of America

Officers and Information Coordinator

Chair :

Werner STEPHAN
Universitätsbibliothek Stuttgart
Post fach 104941
DE-70043 Stuttgart
Germany
Tel. : +49(0)711 121-2222
Fax : +49(0)711 121-3502
e-mail : werner.stephan@ub.uni-stuttgart.de

Secretary / Treasurer

Françoise BOURDON
Bibliothèque nationale de France
quai François Mauriac
75706 Paris Cedex 13
France
Tel. : (33) 1-53-79-59-05
Fax : (33) 1-53-79-50-45
e-mail : francoise.bourdon@bnf.fr

Information Coordinator

Kirsten WANECK
Dansk BiblioteksCenter A/S
Tempovej 7-11
DK 2750 Ballerup
Denmark
Tel. : +45 44 86 77 77
Fax : +45 44 86 78 91
e-mail : kw@dbc.dk

Meetings where the Section was represented

Some Standing Committee members have been involved in various activities during the last months :

ICNBS, November 1998

Officers and several Standing Committee members attended the International Conference on National Bibliographic Services held in Copenhagen on 27-28 November 1998 under the ægis of the Division of Bibliographic Control and the UBCIM Programme, at the Royal Library of Denmark invitation. A report of this conference will be presented by Mona Madsen (Royal School of Librarianship, Copenhagen and member of the Section on cataloguing) during the open forum of the Section on bibliography during the IFLA Bangkok conference (cf. infra). In the framework of this conference, Françoise Bourdon chaired a workshop on the theme : can national bibliographic agencies afford to record everything that is published ?

Coordinating Board extra-meeting, April 1999

Werner Stephan (Chair) and Françoise Bourdon (Secretary) attended an extra-meeting of the Coordinating Board of the Division of Bibliographic Control in Paris on 15-16 April 1999. During this session, current work of the three sections of the Division was reviewed, the professional programme of Bangkok was completed (open forums, workshops, etc.) and the new reading rooms for researchers within the Bibliothèque nationale de France which hosted the meeting were visited.

International and national cataloguing rules, Moscow, April 1999

Some members of the Standing Committee attended the international conference on the theme "International and national cataloguing rules : current situation and future trends" held in Moscow on 20-24 April 1999 under the ægis of the Division of Bibliographic Control and the UBCIM Programme, at the Russian State Library invitation. Eeva Murtomaa (Helsinki University Library, Finland) and Françoise Bourdon presented papers. In the framework of a workshop devoted to the international authority control and chaired by Françoise Bourdon, Bohdana Stoklasova (National Library of the Czech Republic) advised the attendance on her experience in the management of authority files.

Projects in which the Section was involved

Minimal Level of Authority Records (MLAR)

Some Standing Committee members were involved in the Working Group MLAR created under the auspices of the UBCIM Programme and which completed its final report in December 1998 (cf. infra). A new working group on authority control was created in April 1999 during the extra-meeting of the Coordinating Board of the Division of Bibliographic Control to carry on the study of an international standard authority data number (ISADN) and to examine the functional requirements of authority records. This new group will work under the aegis of the Division and of the UBCIM Programme and will be chaired by Françoise Bourdon. A kick-off meeting will take place during the Bangkok Conference.

Guidelines for OPAC displays

The Section was involved, through Françoise Bourdon and Eeva Murtomaa, in this working group "Guidelines for OPAC displays" created under the aegis of the Section on cataloguing. Comments on the draft prepared by a consultant were sent in due time (April 1999). An evaluation meeting is planned during the annual conference in Bangkok.

Metadata

The Section was involved through Eeva Murtomaa in the working group on metadata created in August 1998 by the Section on cataloguing. The aim is to study when and how bibliographies use metadata, what level of metadata is required, what directions for use can be defined to help authors of electronic documents to prepare these metadata.

Publications

Division Brochure

Section officers were involved in the preparation of a brochure presenting the activities of the Division, of its 3 sections and of the UBCIM Programme. Translations into the IFLA working languages were made with the help of Standing Committee members and Werner Stephan was the coordinator of the brochure printing. Items are available from IFLA Headquarters and from the Division and Section officers.

Newsletter

The "Newsletter" of the Section on bibliography was circulated to all section members in March 1999 and another issue is expected at the beginning of the Summer. A vote of thanks must be passed to Werner Stephan and to the university library in Stuttgart for taking over this publication.

MLAR Final Report

The working group on the Minimal Level Authority Records (see above "Projects") within which 2 standing committee members were active (Eeva Murtomaa and Françoise Bourdon), completed its final report in December 1998. This report contains more than 70 examples of authority records gathered and presented by Françoise Bourdon. The electronic version of the report is available on IFLANET (http://www.ifla.org/VI/3/p1996-2/mlar.htm) and the printed version from the IFLA UBCIM Programme (iflaubcim@dbf.ddb.de). Examples are not in machine-readable form and can be found only in the printed report.

Annual report 1997-1998

The progress report of the Section for 1997-1998 was published in French in International Cataloguing and Bibliographic Control, vol.27, n^o4, October/December 1998.

Conference Programmes

Amsterdam Conference (August 1998)

During the open forum of the Section on bibliography (with simultaneus interpretation, more than 60 participants) the 4 following papers were presented :

Bibliographic control in the Netherlands

by Kees Van Den Berg, Royal Library, The Hague, Netherlands

Available on IFLANET :
in English : www.ifla.org/IV/ifla64/021-141e.htm
in French : www.ifla.org/IV/ifla64/021-141f.htm
in German : www.ifla.org/IV/ifla64/021-141g.htm (original version)

Remote access electronic serials and the National Library of Norway

by Anne M.H. Langballe, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

Abstract : according to the Norwegian Legal Deposit Act (1989) electronic documents are subjects to legal deposit at the request of the National Library, Rana Division (NBR) in each case. A plan for the handling of deposited electronic material was published in 1995. According to the plan, NBR keeps an inventory of Internet serials with access to the web sites of the serials. From 1994 the University of Oslo Library catalogues the Internet serials, also with access to the web sites, for the Norwegian national bibliography database Norper.

As of November 1997 Norper included the descriptions of 299 different Internet serials. These were searched at their web sites in November and December. 74 were not found at the original or a new site. Of the 225 serials found, 53 were probably ceased, as they had no numbers or news dated 1997 (and in some cases 1996).

Bibliographic control of remote access electronic documents must include checking by library personnel as well as by search robots. Legal deposit cannot be based on access to the publishers' servers.

Available on IFLANET :
in English :www.ifla.org/IV/ifla64/024-141e.htm (original version)
in French : www.ifla.org/IV/ifla64/024-141f.htm
in German : www.ifla.org/IV/ifla64/024-141g.htm

Statistische Auswertung Nationalbibliographischer Daten

(= Feasibility of exploiting bibliometric data in European national bibliographic databases),

by Ute Schwens, Die Deutsche Bibliothek, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Available on IFLANET :
in English : www.ifla.org/IV/ifla64/022-141e.htm
in French : www.ifla.org/IV/ifla64/022-141f.htm
in German : www.ifla.org/IV/ifla64/022-141g.htm(original version)

Presentation on International Bibliography of Bibliographies in Library and Information Science and Related Fields volume 2. 1979-1990

par Maria Witt, Médiathèque de La Villette, Cité des Sciences et de l'industrie, Paris, France

Abstract : the new work "International Bibliography of Bibliographies in Library and Information Science and Related Fields" volume 2. 1979-1990, published by K. G. Saur, is a follow-up to the previous work in the same field, by the same author, which covered the period 1945-1978 and was published by Ossolineum in 1985 (1). It lists ten thousand titles organized according to a topic classification scheme. It includes all areas of information science and related fields: archiving, history of the press, etc. The bibliography contains, for the most part, titles which appeared between 1979 and 1990. As for the reviews, they cover a much longer period: those which appeared after 1990 are included under the relevant titles.

Available on IFLANET :
in English : www.ifla.org/IV/ifla64/023-141e.htm
in French : www.ifla.org/IV/ifla64/023-141f.htm
(original version)
in German

A book review will be published in English in International Cataloguing and Bibliographic Control, vol.28, n^o2, April-June 1999.

Bangkok Conference (August 1999)

In addition to a joint workshop with the Section on national libraries on the theme "Electronic publications and national bibliographies", the open forum of the Section is supposed to welcome the following papers :

ICNBS 1998 New Recommendationsfor the National Bibliography

by Mona Madsen, Royal School of Librarianship, Copenhagen, Denmark

Available on IFLANET in English : www.ifla.org/IV/ifla65/papers/015-123e.htm

Translation into other IFLA working languages are in progress.

National bibliography in Australia: moving into the next millennium

Available on IFLANET in English : www.ifla.org/IV/ifla65/papers/016-123e.htm

Translation into other IFLA working languages are in progress.

The bibliographic situation in Thailand

by Chirudee Pungtrakul, Bangkok, Thailand

10 June 1999