Efficient collaboration between libraries and other data providers relies upon standardisation. One key issue in this context is bibliographic control (also known as information organization or bibliographic organization). 

Universal Bibliographic Control is grounded on sharing the effort of resource description, eliminating redundancy by encouraging sharing and re-use of bibliographic data.

 “A National bibliographic agency (NBA) has the responsibility for providing the authoritative bibliographic data for publications of its own country and for making that data available to other NBAs, libraries, and other communities (for instance archives and museums) through appropriate and timely services with the goal of increasing open access to the bibliographic data; 

NBAs, as a part of the creation of authoritative bibliographic data, also have the responsibility for documenting authorized access points for persons, families, corporate bodies, names of places, and authoritative citations for works related to its own country and for making that authority data available to other NBAs, libraries, and other communities (for instance archives and museums).“ (IFLA Professional Statement on Universal Bibliographic Control:2012)

The International Congress on National Bibliographies (ICNBS) recommended that bibliographic records included in a national bibliography should be based on internationally recognised standards. 

National bibliographic agencies should adopt national and international standards and principles for cataloguing, identification systems such as ISBN and ISSN, character encoding, authority control, classification schemes, metadata and persistent naming of digital objects;

National bibliographic agencies should encourage work on the harmonization of bibliographic standards established in respect of all forms of publications.