Dear colleagues

The IFLA Governing Board seeks nominations for new members of the IFLA ISBD Review Group by Friday, 15 February 2019. The term served by new members will be from August 2019 to August 2023. Please share this message with others who might be interested to ensure as wide a call as possible.

The IFLA ISBD Review Group oversees the production, management and promotion of IFLA’s International Standard Bibliographic description and provides a central coordinating body to which any IFLA ISBD-related issues can be directed. The ISBD RG reports to the IFLA Committee on Standards and is linked with the IFLA Cataloguing Section.

The International Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD) is intended to serve as a principal standard to promote universal bibliographic control, that is, to make universally and promptly available, in a form that is internationally acceptable, basic bibliographic data for all published and unpublished* bibliographic resources in all countries. From the beginning, the main goal of the ISBD has been to provide consistency when sharing bibliographic information.

The ISBD is the only freely accessible and open standard maintained by IFLA that determines the data elements to be transcribed and recorded as the basis of the description of the resource being catalogued. Its existence corresponds to the IFLA objective of providing accessible and open standards and tools for all, including communities that need simple and easy to use rules for describing resources. In addition, it employs prescribed punctuation and a specific sequence of recording information as a means of identifying and displaying data elements and making them understandable independently of the language of the description.

Read more about the responsibilities of the Review Group.

Who is eligible to be nominated?

The IFLA Governing Board will be appointing new members who will be selected mainly on the basis of their expertise. They will also seek to have geographical representation and a mix of skills among the Review Group members according to the requirements of the Group. The Governing Board will base its selection of members on evidence presented as to the nominee’s:

  • previous experience connected with the ISBD or with one or more other IFLA standards (drafting, managing, or contributing to an IFLA standard), or knowledge about and experience with the development of library standards and quality of data control in general which might be applicable in the IFLA context;
  • expertise in cataloguing, knowledge of cataloguing rules or guidelines, metadata management and library-related conceptual models;
  • ability and willingness to contribute regularly, collaboratively, and actively to the work of the ISBD Review Group both during meetings and virtually, during the year, between meetings. Members should also recognise the importance of multiple cultures and diversity, prioritising user needs, and acting with a spirit of negotiation to reach consensus.

Nominees must also have:

  • a reasonable expectation of being able to attend (without cost to IFLA) the business and professional meetings of the Review Group. The meetings are usually held during the IFLA World Library and Information Congress which for the terms of the nominee will be in:

    • Athens, Greece, August 2019;
    • Auckland, New Zealand, August 2020;
    • Location not yet known, August 2021;
    • Location not yet known, August 2022;
    • Location not yet known, August 2023.
  • an existing affiliation to IFLA through membership of an IFLA Professional Unit Standing Committee, or IFLA Membership affiliation through being an employee of an Association or Institutional Member, or a member of an Association Member, or a Personal Affiliate;
  • a working knowledge of at least one of the working languages of IFLA (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Russian and Spanish). Since the business meetings of IFLA are generally conducted in English, reasonable fluency in this language is necessary to be able to fully participate as a member of an IFLA Review Group. Considering the specific needs of internationalisation of the ISBD, nominations are encouraged from people who are also fluent or a native speaker in a language other than English, especially a language using a non-Latin alphabet.

Members are appointed initially for four years. The Chair will be elected by the newly formed committee (consisting of the new and continuing members).

How to nominate someone

Please send nominations for this Review Group by 15 February 2019 using the nominee consent form

Candidates may nominate themselves. If you are nominating another person, please ensure you have their consent and signature on the nomination form.

Selection of new members

The details of nominees may be shared with the IFLA Professional Committee, the IFLA Committee on Standards, current Review Group Chairs, and the IFLA Governing Board members.

Persons selected for the Review Group will be informed in April 2019. This timing will enable them to take advantage of the early registration discount for the IFLA World Library and Information Congress where the first meeting of the new Review Group members will take place.

Further questions?

If you have further questions about the Review Group and its responsibilities, please contact the current Chair of the Review Group or the IFLA Nominations Coordinator, Lidia Putziger.

I look forward to receiving your nominations by 15 February 2019.

Best regards,

Gerald Leitner
Secretary General

*The extension of the ISBD to the description of unpublished resources was decided by the ISBD Review Group in 2012, the revision of the ISBD as an application of IFLA LRM was decided in 2017.