SCATNews
Newsletter of the Standing Committee of the IFLA Section on Cataloguing

Number 12,
June 1999
ISSN: 1022-9841

News from the standing committee of the section on cataloguing

Standing committee nominations
Term 1999-2001

by Ingrid Parent

The year 1999 is an election year, and there have been some changes made to the membership of the Standing Committee on Cataloguing. Our committee was one of three committees that received more nominations than places available. There were 21 valid nominations for 20 places. Instead of having an election, the Executive Board and the Professional Board have allowed Cataloguing to have 21 members on its committee.

The new list of members of the Standing Committee are:
Ms Nadine Boddaert	France
Paul V. Bunn	United Kingdom
Ms Kerstin Dahl	Sweden
Ms Zlata Dimec	Slovenia
Ms Assumpció Estivill	Spain
Ton Heijligers	Netherlands
Ms Maria del Mar Hernandez Augusti	Spain
Ms Lynne C. Howarth	Canada
Ms Natalia N. Kasparova	Russian Federation
Ms Mona Madsen	Denmark
Ms Dorothy McGarry	USA
Ms Monika Münnich	Germany
Ms Ingrid Parent	Canada
Glenn Patton	USA
Ms Isa de Pinedo	Italy
Reinhard Rinn	Germany
Vladimir Skvortsov	Russian Federation
Ms Ludmila Terekhova	Russian Federation
Ms Barbara B. Tillett	USA
Ms Marit Vestlie	Norway
Ms Maria Witt	France
In addition there are several people who serve in other capacities:
Observers:
Mauro Guerrini	Italy
Ms Aleksandra Horvat	Croatia
Ms Anne Munkebyaune	Norway
Corresponding members:
Peter Haddad	Australia
Ms Maria Margarita Leon Ortiz	Cuba
Ms Poliksena Matkovska	Republic of Macedonia
Li-Zhong Yan	China
Ms Sin Joan Yee	Fiji
Special Advisors:
Ms Fernanda M. Campos	Portugal
John D. Byrum, Jr.	USA

I would like to extend a warm welcome to our newcomers: Maria del Mar Hernandez Augusti, Vladimir Skvortsov, Marit Vestlie, Mauro Guerrini, Anne Munkebyaune, and Poliksena Matkovska.

At the same time, we must say Au revoir to Zohreh Alavi and Anne Munkebyaune as regular members of the committee. Their input and dedication to our cataloguing activities were very much appreciated. Thank you! Anne will continue to be involved with committee work through her new status as an observer to the committee.

Elections of officers for the committee will also be held in August. I will be ending my mandate as chair of the committee. It has been a wonderful experience and I wish to sincerely thank all the members of the committee and other IFLA colleagues for their professional support and friendship during this time.

IFLA annual conference
Bangkok, Thailand
20-28 August 1999

by Ingrid Parent

The IFLA Standing Committe of the Section on Cataloguing is planning a very diverse and informative program during the general IFLA conference.

Program Session

The Open Program Session will be held on Wednesday, 25 August from 9:00 to 11:20. The theme of the session will be "Cataloguing Rules: New Trends in Theory, Practice and Teaching". Four speakers will discuss cataloguing rules from various perspectives: creation and display of catalogue data, metadata, and teaching.

The following papers will be presented:

1. Metadata and trends of cataloguing in Thai libraries
   PRADITTA SIRIPAN (Technical Information Access Center, Ministry of Science and Technology, Bangkok, Thailand)
2. Guidelines for OPAC displays
   MARTHA M. YEE (UCLA Film and Television Archives, Los Angeles, California, USA)
3. German cataloguing rules facing the 21st century: RAK headings for internationality and online operability
   MONIKA MUNNICH (Universitätsbibliothek, Heidelberg, Germany)
4. About the use of "Functional Requirements in Bibliographic Records" in teaching cataloguing
   KIRSTEN MARIE STRUNCK (Department of Information Studies. Royal School of Library and Information Science, Copenhagen, Denmark)

Cataloguing Committee members are working hard to have copies of all these papers available at the Conference in all five official languages. Several papers are already available on IFLAnet.

Workshop

The Section on Cataloguing will hold a workshop on the theme "Universal Bibliographic Control in the Multilingual/Multiscript Environment: Access to information - theory and practice." The workshop will be held on Thursday, 26 August, from 9:00 to 13:00.

The Workshop Convenor is Eeva Murtomaa, assisted by Kerstin Dahl and Maria Witt. Several international speakers will present their views on multilingual and multiscript cataloguing and format issues.

This year there is no pre-registration for workshops. Those who wish to attend should go directly to the workshop in the room that will be indicated in the final conference program. Attendance will be limited by the size of the room in the BITEC Centre.

Division of Bibliograpic Control Open Forum

The Division of Bibliographic Control will hold an Open Forum on Monday, 23 August from 9:00 - 10:25 to provide updates on the work of the Division and its Sections, and on various international bibliographic control standards, products and projects. This session is always very informative and well attended. Simultaneous Interpretation will be available.

Standing Committee of the Section on Cataloguing meetings

Observers are welcome to attend these two meetings.

We hope to see many of you at our Cataloguing programs and meetings during the 65th IFLA General Conference!

International conference on "International and national cataloguing rules"
Moscow
20-24 April 1999

by Marie-France Plassard and Ingrid Parent

This international conference was organized and hosted by the Russian State Library in cooperation with the Russian Library Association as well as with the IFLA Section on Cataloguing and the IFLA UBCIM Programme. The main sponsor was the Open Society Institute (Soros), whose grant enabled participation from countries of Eastern Europe and former republics of the USSR, and contributed to the expenses of the international speakers. The aims of the conference were to bring together experts involved in national and international projects related to revision and further development of cataloguing rules, to survey current trends and issue recommendations for national cataloguing agencies and international organizations.

About 60 participants came from the main institutions in Moscow and St. Petersburg as well as from 15 countries: Belarus, Canada, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Mongolia, Tajikistan, the USA and Uzbekistan. IFLA representatives were Ms. Ingrid Parent, Chair of the IFLA Division of Bibliographic Control and Ms. Marie-France Plassard, IFLA UBCIM Programme, and the IFLA Sections on Bibliography, Cataloguing and Classification and Indexing were also represented. The generous hospitality of the hosts and the sponsors was very much appreciated by all participants who also enjoyed visits to the Russian State Library and the All Russia State Library for Foreign Literature.

The conference was chaired by Ms. Nina Khakhaleva, Deputy Director of the Russian State Library. After opening speeches by Mr. Victor Fedorov, Director of the Russian State Library, Mr. Vladimir Zaitsev, President of the Russian Library Association, Ms. Ekaterina Genieva, Director of the All Russia State Library for Foreign Literature and First Vice President of IFLA, as well as IFLA representatives, the first day was devoted to international issues and activities. During the first session, international principles of cataloguing today and IFLA international projects related to authority control and metadata were presented. The afternoon session dealt with recent developments in the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules and cataloguing electronic resources.

The next day, speakers from libraries in Moscow and St. Petersburg reported on developments and issues related to multilingual catalogues (choice of languages) and to international terminology used in cataloguing, as well as new trends in Russian cataloguing rules, bibliographic links and formats. A lively discussion ensued and many suggestions for projects were addressed to the IFLA Section on Cataloguing. In the afternoon, national cataloguing developments in Belarus, Finland, France, Germany, Italy and Kazakhstan and their impact on international exchange of records were presented. The last day was devoted to discussion of two key issues: cataloguing electronic resources and international authority control. During the closing session, Ms. Parent summarized results of the discussion and recommendations were issued.

Conclusions and recommendations

It was recognized during the conference that the distribution of information knows no boundaries, and cataloguers must work together, and with other related communities, to describe information in a standardized way to facilitate access and retrieval of that information.

Cataloguing has had a long history of development, and cataloguers must be leaders in information management, including access to electronic publications. Cataloguers have worked very hard to achieve national and international standardization of bibliographic description, access points and communication formats. Progress has been made, but much more needs to be done to address both current and future information management issues.

Conference participants therefore formulated the following recommendations:

For the IFLA Section on Cataloguing

1. Develop a multilingual dictionary of terminology covering the most commonly used cataloguing terms.
2. Compile a list of certain key cataloguing rules from several major cataloguing codes.
3. Hold a programme session at a future IFLA annual conference on the problems and solutions encountered in the development of national cataloguing rules.
4. Review with ISO the appropriate standards for transliteration with the objective of consistent application.
5. Develop guidelines to assist libraries to decide when to provide metadata information for a publication and when to provide a catalogue record.

   For the IFLA Working Group on Authorities

6. Include Author/Title entries in authority records.
7. Develop guidelines on the creation of multilingual authority records.
8. Develop a mechanism to attach all forms of a name together within one authority file.
9. Establish a listserv on authority files issues.

   For metadata developers and providers

10. Add an element to the Dublin Core record: date the publication is retrieved on the Internet.
11. Encourage metadata providers to adhere to metadata standards, preferably the Dublin Core elements.
12. Continue to work together towards compatibility of library cataloguing standards and metadata standards, and the development of a permanent identifier for electronic publications.

    For the UBCIM Programme

13. Continue to work towards compatibility of the UNIMARC and the MARC 21 communication formats.

(photo: B. Tillett)
Several of the speakers and participants at the Conference

ELAG and the IFLA model for bibliographic records

One of the groups that has been actively investigating the application and impact of the "Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records" Study is ELAG, the European Library Automation Group. At the ELAG 99 Conference held in Slovenia in April, the participants discussed an enhanced bibliographic model and its impact on cataloguers and on cataloguing formats and systems.

A report by Liv A. Holm is available at: http://www.nuk.uni-lj.si/elag99/wsreports/ws4.html

Library reports

News from Australia

by Peter Haddad,
National Library of Australia

Joint Steering Committee AACR

Ms Ann Huthwaite of the Queensland University of Technology Library has been elected to the Chair of the Joint Steering Committee for the Revision of AACR.

Kinetica

Kinetica, the National Library of Australia's replacement system for its national bibliographical service ABN became operational in March with the release of the KineticaWeb search/addition of holdings facility. In April the Kinetica cataloguing client was launched. Over 1,000 organisations around Australia have so far registered as Kinetica users. The remaining service, the Kinetica Document Delivery Service is being tested and will be implemented shortly.

European Microforms Project

The European Microforms Project is an undertaking by a number of Australian university libraries led by the University of Adelaide Library and working together with the National Library of Australia. The project aims to improve access to individual titles within large microform sets held in Australian libraries. Microform sets relating to Europe and European studies are the focus of the project. So far this cooperative project has purchased over 150,000 machine-readable catalogue records from organisations overseas, and from a number of libraries. These records have been loaded to ABN/Kinetica. The final stage of the project will entail contracting for original catalogue record creation for important sets

National Bibliography

Australian libraries have been considering the future of the Australian national bibliography through a report from an Advisory Group set up to advise the National Library on users' needs, content and delivery. The report addresses such issues as coverage, standards, distribution, and archival copies. It may be found on the National Library of Australia's website at: http://www.nla.gov.au/ANBreport.html.

ISSN manual revision

by Gudrun Kark
Die Deutsche Bibliothek

The first meeting of the ISSN Manual Revision Working Group took place in Paris at the ISSN International Centre on June 10^th and 11^th 1999. The members present were:

Ms. Françoise Pellé (ISSN International Centre), Ms. Françoise Boucheron (ISSN France), Ms. Jelka Gazvoda (ISSN Slovenia), Ms. Agneta Holmenmark (ISSN Sweden), Ms. Gudrun Kark (ISSN Germany), Ms. Regina Reynolds (ISSN USA), Mr. Alain Roucolle (ISSN International Centre), Ms. Jasenka Zajec (ISSN Croatia).

The members will get support in preparing the revision work by corresponding members from ISSN Hungary, Slovakia, Japan, Finland, Romania, Norway, Thailand, Poland and China.

What are the objectives of the ISSN Manual Revision?

The ISSN manual has to be adjusted for the identification and cataloguing of electronic publications. Solutions shall be found to establish the assignment and the application of ISSN for electronic publications. Which types are regarded to be eligible for ISSN assignment? Which characteristics do they need in order to get an ISSN?

And last, but not least: The revision shall contribute to the harmonization with other descriptive rules such as ISBD(S) and AACR2. As ISBD(S) and AACR2 are under revision right now, this is a unique chance for the ISSN Network, the ISBD(S) and AACR2 communities to come closer together and to harmonize the rules wherever possible. I would like to point out some issues that have to be discussed in the ISSN Network.

Title changes and key title

At the working group meeting the idea of introducing a basic rule giving a number of words of the title proper that would be relevant for major changes (changes after these words would be considered to be minor) was regarded to be a good idea for the ISSN Network in order to diminish the major changes of the key title which require a new ISSN and a new key title. But the exact number of words (5, 4, 3?) needs further discussion.

A proposal to change the key title construction "generic term - corporate body as on publication" to "generic term (corporate body as on publication)" in cases where a corporate body has to be added to a generic term will be discussed. The manual already allows to use a corporate body as a qualifier if other qualifying elements are not sufficient. The ISSN Network as an international network uses the corporate body as it is on the piece, AACR2 uses the established form. Of course, this proposal will mean a harmonization in form, but not in content and needs further working out.

In the ISSN database, in 70% of the titles the key title is the title proper, that means, the title as shown in 222&a is the title proper. (The number is reduced by the cases where the key title is the acronym plus full form, separated by a full stop). A renunciation of this form of key title construction as suggested would contribute to harmonization, if the full form can be agreed on in all ongoing revisions. Only 10% of the titles have generic term plus added corporate body. 20% of the titles are combinations when the title is not unique and the use of a qualifier is necessary (222&a contains the title proper and 222&b the qualifier). Only a small number of 4.000 titles has generic term plus corporate body plus qualifier.

It might be a first step for harmonization if the key title would resemble title proper plus qualification (if needed) in as many cases as possible.

Successive and latest entry

If the scope of ISSN was broadened to integrating resources in the future, it has to be recognized that some of these resources will not exhibit a succession of titles. When the title changes, the old one formerly shown on the resource will be replaced by the new one, in many cases even without knowing that it has changed at all. The AACR recommendations (Rec. 3.7) go at latest entry cataloguing for integrating resources. The newest title known will be in the title proper position then, former known titles will be given in the record with an information of the period of time in which they were used. In case of a title change, the title proper will be changed to the new title. The AACR2 proposal is to consider electronic journals to be successively-issued because they are issued in discrete parts, even when an article (rather than an issue) equates to the discrete part. So AACR recommends successive entry conventions for them, what would fit to the ISSN principle of successive entries.

For ISSN, the principle is that an ISSN is unique for a key title ( 1 ISSN - 1 key title). How shall the ISSN Network treat title changes in integrating resources ? If the answer is "latest entry" principle this would mean the introduction of a new principle (1 ISSN for several titles; no ISSN assignment to new titles) what might be difficult for ISSN assignment. What if a change is not recognized as such? This topic needs further discussion.

Content versus carrier: ISSN and the different needs of its users

ISSN cannot identify content and carrier (product) at the same time. The current practice is to assign different ISSN to versions. Different communities have different needs here: Whereas abstracting and indexing services aim at the content and the DOI system is used for rights management, barcoding even goes beyond identifying products. The question of citation might as well be an argument for different ISSN (which version is cited from?) and one ISSN (the primary citation will be cited first). In the future, it is not sure that the printed version will be the first. There is already "online first" principle to be seen now.

Retrospective conversion project in LFL, Moscow, Russian Federation

by Ludmila Terekhova,
Head of the Cataloguing Department

History

The Library for Foreign Literature has accumulated extensive experience in retrospective conversion of its card catalogues.

The Retroconversion project was initiated in 1996. At the first stage a commonly used method of retrospective conversion was chosen - the manual input of records to the data base.

For this experiment the Loan book collection was chosen. There were the following reasons for it:

• it was situated near the office area and the access to the book was ensured,
• the collection wasn't so large (about 150,000 books) and included a lot of duplicates,
• the first stage of experiment was fulfilled by the cataloguers, the further enlisting done by the Loan Department specialists,
• first of all the records for most frequently used books based on circulation data, were converted,
• the scheme included three points, namely "the book - the card - the computer record", the record included the information about all the duplicate copies on the shelf,
• in the process of the conversion the bibliographic descriptions were edited, whenever it was necessary.

After the specialists of the Loan Department had been properly trained, they continued the retroconversion of the card catalogues without assistance.

The next stage of retrospective conversion project was the general catalogue of the Library. The manual methods were not suitable in this case for many reasons, the main ones being a large volume of work, time and specially trained staff.

There were two ways to implement this major project (2,000,000 catalogue cards).

1. OCLC project. However, we could not follow this way because of the classification scheme used in LFL, peculiarities of the Russian cataloguing rules and shelf marks in the card (call number, shelf number). Practically it was necessary to edit the record, and this is an expensive process. We needed a sizable amount of money and needed it immediately. Besides, it required the delivery of the cards to another country.
2. Vendor contract with the Russian firm "Giper" eliminated these problems. Financial assistance was obtained from a foreign agency. This was the only right way to implement the conversion of the Library card catalogues. The project was started in August 1998.

Technology

The project comprises three phases:

1. Scanning. This first stage was to be completed in two years. By now 700,000 cards have been scanned for books in English, German and Russian. This stage is rather simple and is performed by the engineers of the firm. The process is carried out automatically. The difficulties with entries for multivolume editions, data on the other side of the cards, illegible cards or cards in poor condition were dealt with step by step.
2. Transcription. The second stage includes the process of transcription, i.e. ata input according to the fields. It is also an automatic process, but it is necessary to consult the cataloguers, who know the history of the Library's catalogue, the discrepancies in cataloguing rules, the elements of bibliographical description, etc. They also edited the process of data transcription. The process is 20 per cent manual, yet in difficult cases, it is 50 per cent manual.
3. Coding and tagging. In the third and final phase the records are converted and loaded into TINLIB - the Library's automated system.

This process is automatic, yet some changes in different fields are done manually: the authority records (author, publishers, series), the records under the same title, but with different title statements etc.

The last two stages will take more time than the first one, and all the staff members of the Cataloguing Department will be involved in this work, however there is perspective to make the retrospective electronic catalogue available for the users in any form, right after scanning with the help of a specially developed software, or in the form of ready automated records.

LC ILS (Integrated Library System)
JUNE 1999

by Barbara B. Tillett

In May 1998 the Library of Congress awarded a contract to Endeavor Information Systems, Inc. for their Voyager integrated library system.

Since January (last report), over 400 people working on the 76 implementation teams have all made great progress, and we are still on target to have all the components up and running by our original target of October 1999. We are conducting several "test loads" of our records in preparation for the production load and the results have been very helpful in refining our preprocessing programs for loading bibliographic and authority records, as well as patron records, vendor records, circulation charge records, and open orders. Formal training began in April with classes on OPAC and staff searching taught by our cadre of excellent volunteer trainers from among LC staff. Starting June 1 we began cataloging training. Approximately 3,000 LC staff members will be trained through October in the various modules (cataloging, circulation, OPAC, and acquisitions/serials check-in). Cataloging, circulation, and OPAC are scheduled to "go live" in August, and acquisitions and serials check-in on the LC ILS will begin in October.

LC's bibliographic and authority records will continue to be distributed during the transition. Please see the Cataloging Distribution Service announcement about the plans for the MARC Distribution Service. The official master CONSER database will remain on OCLC, and LC will continue to provide maintenance for those records. The LC ILS Local Database will reflect all records for materials in LC collections, as well as all authority records. A special database in the LC ILS will be established to continue the production of the Handbook of Latin American Studies, and a master database will be maintained for the production of the Library of Congress Subject Headings.

Over 2,000 PCs have been replaced and loaded with the latest Voyager software - a huge effort accomplished by the Automation Planning and Liaison Office (APLO), the ILS Workstation Group, plus many volunteers from divisions library-wide and staff from the Information Technology Services (ITS). The Library installed its two new ILS servers during February, and a performance benchmark was conducted in April. The benchmark included documentation of the system's Y2K compliance. The results from the benchmark will be used to optimize performance of the system.

As important steps in capturing our "manual" inventory information, the Library will have three "Requests for Proposals" (RFP's) out for bid this year: 1) data transfer from the Library's sheet shelflist to the Library's card shelflist (announced in early June), 2) conversion of the card shelflist holdings information into the LC ILS (to be announced in late summer or early fall), and 3) conversion of holdings information from manual serials check-in files into the LC ILS (to be announced in late June or early July).

The Library introduced a public ILS home page on February 8, 1999. The Internet address is: http://lcweb.loc.gov/ils/

News from the Library of Congress

by John D. Byrum

Bibliographic Enrichment Advisory Team

Since January 1999 the Bibliographic Enrichment Advisory Team (BEAT), which operates under the auspices of the Cataloging Directorate but includes representatives from many areas of the Library, including public services and electronic programs, has focused particular attention on three projects: (1) Expanding the digital Table of Contents (D-TOC) project while developing systems and new programs to allow the project to operate in the Library's Integrated Library System (ILS) environment; (2) Undertaking experiments to explore linking electronic bibliographic materials to works they contain (as well as linking discrete items to the bibliographies) and to expand these links to additional resources in various formats (BeCites+); (3) Continuing the BEOnline project, which deals with numerous issues surrounding electronic works that are remotely available on the World Wide Web.

Cataloging in Publication
Electronic Cataloging in Publication Project (ECIP)

Implementation of the Electronic Cataloging in Publication (ECIP) program is now underway. A joint agreement with the Guild and the Union was signed March 23, 1999. Implementation will be gradual, expanding on the current base of 50 participating publishers and approximately 60 LC staff who took part in the ECIP testing.

Under ECIP, a participating publisher transmits to the Library an electronic application for CIP data accompanied by an electronic file of the full text of the forthcoming book. The published will have already been directed to add elementary codes in the text which enable processing of the file upon receipt at LC. Cataloging is completed online and the CIP data is transmitted electronically to the publisher.

Pinyin Romanization

The Library of Congress and RLG are working together to prepare for conversion of Chinese bibliographic records in the RLIN database to pinyin. LC is now identifying bibliographic records in the Chinese script which need to be loaded into RLIN for conversion. The target for their conversion is the spring of 2000. The Library has sent draft specifications to RLG. The draft will be used to write a computer program which will perform as much of the conversion as possible. The program should also be able to change headings for the most frequently used Chinese conventional names. A copy of the draft specifications was also sent to OCLC .

The Library has also begun a related project to bring Chinese conventional place names into conformance with the forms currently recommended by the U. S. Board on Geographic Names. CPSO changes headings for geographic locations, one province at a time, along with the cities therein. Then catalogers then change related authority records. As of June 1, 24 provinces and major cities (including Beijing) have been changed; only six more remain to be changed. Up-to-the-minute information about changes can be found on the CPSO home page at URL: http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/china.html

Further information regarding the pinyin conversion project is available on the Pinyin home page, which was recently mounted on the Library of Congress's Web site to provide a vehicle for significant documentation and up-to-date news. The address is: http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/pinyin/

Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) Activities

Mid-year statistics show that contributions of new name authority record submitted to the NACO program equal 39% of last fiscal year's totals; new series contributions stand at 54%; new SACO contributions equal 47% of last year's total and contributions of new bibliographic records to the BIBCO program are at an all time high surpassing last year's mid-year totals by 23%. International growth has increased dramatically with five new international libraries scheduled to join the PCC in the coming months which will bring the number of overseas participants to 25 libraries.

Jean Hirons, CONSER Coordinator, submitted the report "Revising AACR2 to Reflect Seriality" to the Joint Steering Committee on the Revision of AACR (JSC) in late March and the report was made available for worldwide review in May. Catalogers from the AACR constituent countries and Germany participated in the process of developing initial recommendations to Hirons which led to the final report. The report presents broad recommendations for the cataloging of traditional and electronic serials, as well as other "continuing resources," such as loose-leaf publications and Web sites. In addition to addressing electronic resources, a primary goal is harmonization with ISBD(S) and ISSN. Comments on the report are due to the JSC by September 1.

Outreach to the international library community has resulted in the scheduling of 5 new libraries from abroad to join NACO: Trinity College, Dublin, the National Library of Wales, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, the State Library of Pretoria, and the University of South Africa, Pretoria. The Cooperative Cataloging Team also provided two-week SACO training to the Soros Fellows from the Central European University, Budapest, Hungary and the International Baptist Theological Seminary.

MARC 21 Format for Bibliographic Data (1999 Edition)

The 1999 edition of the MARC 21 Format for Bibliographic Data is now available from the Library of Congress. This new publication supercedes the 1994 edition and Updates Nos. 1-3 (1995-1997) of the USMAC Format for Bibliographic Data as well as the base text and Updates nos. 1-6 (1993-1998) of the Canadian MARC Communication Format for bibliographic Data. In addition, it includes changes to the bibliographic format resulting from proposals which were considered by the ALA ALCTS/LITA/RUSA Machine-Readable Bibliographic Information Committee (MARBI) at its meetings from 1998 through February 1999 and by the Canadian Committee on MARC (CCM) at its meetings from 1998 through February 1999.

From 1994-1997 the USMARC and CAN/MARC user communities worked to eliminate all remaining differences in their two already-similar formats.In 1997 and early 1998, updates to the formats were issued that made the format specifications identical. MARC 21 is the new name of the harmonized CAN/MARC and USMARC Formats and publishes the formats in one edition.

MARC 21 Format for Bibligraphic Data (ISBN 0-8444-0989-8) is published in two volumes and is available for $70 (North America except Canada) and $80 (US) (outside North America) from:

French versions of MARC 21 publications and English versions in Canada are available from:

Contributions to SCATNews

Contributions to SCATNews are welcome at any time. Please send news items, articles, comments to the Editor: