31 Latest trends in Bibliographic description and Exchange formats: ISBD and CCF

3.1   Objectives:

After reading carefully this module, it in expected that  you will be able to understand :

·         The basic concept and need of bibliographic description ,

·         The development of preparation of draft for various non-book materials,

·         With regard to International standard bibliographic description ,

·         The characteristics and very purpose of bibliographic description ,

·         The standards format which facilitates for consistency & uniformity in bibliographic,

·         The meaning of exchange format and the reasons for emergence of CCF

·         It’s objective, function and structure

·         The Features and benefit of CCF

Keywords : Bibliographic description, I S B N, Exchange format, Tag, P I G, Record label.

3.2    Introduction:

In this age of Information flood and the advent of IT era, it is very difficult to locate and retrieve the desired information. Hence it is necessary that the efficient information retrieval system must have a format of bibliographic description that matches its requirements. A bibliographic format in such a way to be redesigned so as to make it most compatible with the new information environment for international library resource sharing, international library loan and global networking with the aid of information communication Technologies.

The bibliographic description in a process of recording the items of information about the document for easy identification and instant location, access and for the purpose of effective dissemination.

3.3 I S B D

3.31 Reasons for flourishing I S B D

For more then 40 year, I F L A has made significant contribution for promoting the cause of bibliographic standardisation which pave the way for developing the concept of I S B D. The most viable reasons for flourishing I S B D are :

·         Continuing influence of the forces that prompted their formulation in the first place,

·         Inadequate library budget leads to economic necessity of sharing cataloguing, the need of library automation and importantly to achieve bibliographic control,

·         Standardisation of bibliographic description format in the viable solution economically and technologically for creation, conversion and use of machine-readable records,

·         The I S B D’s were also intended is serve as the main component of I F L A’s program to make globally and promptly available the basic bibliographic information for all publications in all countries i.e. to promote Universal Bibliographic Control

3.32   Introduction:

Unprecedented growth of literature gives rise to develop adequate formats with standard bibliographic description to promote resource sharing among libraries and to have effective information retrieval system. The library scenario has been completely changed with the application Information Communication Technology rendered the traditional manual oriented bibliographic description standards inadequate paved the way for newer bibliographic standards. Moreover, the fast growth of International Bibliographic Exchange Formats and lack of compatibility poses problems to exchange records with one another. It is possible if each of the organizations agree upon a common standard format for exchange purpose to be achieved at National and International level.

3.33 Development of ISBD

In1969 a Working Group was set up at the International Meeting of Cataloguing Experts held at Copenhagen which marked the beginning of the process of developing International Standards for Bibliographic Description which was published in 1971and, subsequently, ISBD (M)   was published in 1974. To cope up with advent of Non Book Materials, specific bibliographic descriptions are drafted like ISBD (CM), ISBD (AVM), ISBD (CF) etc. Further ISBD (G) was brought out to offer a generalized structure for the description bibliographic records and the only utility of (G) is that of ensuring harmony among various ISBD s and to remove incompatibility among them. Subsequently ISBD (ER) was brought out to catalogue the Electronic, Internet and Web resources and ISBD (S) for Serials has been changed to ISBD(CR) Continuing Resources in 2002.

The ISBD specified the elements for bibliographic description, presented the sequence in which they should be presented and pinpointed the punctuation marks whereby they should be separated.

There are essentially five phases in the development of a new and revised ISBD:

i)         creation of draft text.

ii)       World Wide Review

iii)       Final Revision

iv)        Balloting

v)        Publication and workshop’s

The ISBD Review Group has taken    initiation to discuss and examine the following :

*    to clarity the puropose of area 6 (series) and it’s relation with area 1 in ISBD continuous Resources (ISBD CR), previously serials and ISSN: idenification or transcription;

*to verify the compatibility of sources of information recommended or prescribed in all ISBD for area 6 and area 1in ISBD(CR) and ISSN

*  to improve consistencyof terminology and content throught ISBDs

After prolong discussion, deliberations, comments and review of the proposed draft which was posted in IFLANET, feedback received which clearly provided the feasible solutions I the above issues.

3.34 OBJECTIVES:

ISBD has brought radical changes in descriptive cataloguing. The main objectives are :

Ø  To make records generating from different sources interchangeable so as to facilitate global networking.

Ø   To facilitate their interpretation overriding the language barrier, and

Ø   To make feasible conversion of such records into machine-readable form.

  Ø  Intended to be an aid to international communication of bibliographic information between national and linguistic groups.

Ø  Intended to provide the data required in various bibliographical activities i.e not only in library cataloguing but also in the announcement of new publications and in the acquisition and distribution of Books and their handling both in the libraries and in the book trade.

Ø  To facilitate the free flow of information by facilitating the exchange of bibliographic records in one database to machine-readable form.

3.35 PURPOSE:

Ø  ISBD helps standardization of cataloguing rules and manual format for machine-readable bibliographic records.

Ø  To make publications identifiable by the descriptions alone without the aid of Headings of Main, Added entries or Uniform title.

Ø  To provide a standard to facilitate International exchange of bibliographic information, whether in written or machine readable form.

Ø  To provide a uniform descriptive framework for all types of library materials that will serve varied bibliographic uses.

Ø  Designed primarily as an instrument for the international communication of bibliographic information. By specifying the elements which should comprise a bibliographical description and by prescribing the order in which they should be presented and the punctuation by which they should be presented and demarcated.

Ø  Should also be suitable to machine readable form and development of AACR-2 meets the ISBD standards and recommendations, as such AACR-2 is applicable to machine readable form.

Ø   To provide a standardization of bibliographic record

3.36 CHARACTERISTICS:

1:  It’s comprehensiveness

2:  It’s fixed order of data elements

3:  It’s use of punctuation as delimiters or divides between the different Bibliographic elements.

4:   In ISBD traditional data elements of bibliographic descriptions are separated and grouped into 8 distinct areas.

3.37 SCOPE OF ISBD

There are 8 areas of description as per ISBD are:

1.      Title and statement of responsibility.

2.      Edition

3.      Material (or type of Publication) specific data (used for cartographic materials and serials)

4.      Publication, distribution data, including place and date of Publication.

5.        Physical description

6.      Series

7.      Notes

8.      Standard number and terms of availability.

FORMAT OF MAIN ENTRY

3.38 Punctuation marks used in ISBD

The different punctuation marks used to demarcate various areas of bibliographic descriptions in ISBD have been prescribed in AACR—2R are provided in Appendix-1 for better understanding and clarity of the students.

3.9 COMMON COMMUNICATION FORMAT (CCF)

3.9.1     INTRODUCTION

The fast growth of international bibliographic exchange formats coupled with lack of compatibility amongst them creates problems both to libraries and other information services to exchange records with one another. Hence, each of these organizations felt the urgent need to agree upon a common standard format for the purpose of easy exchange. International Symposium on Bibliography Exchange Formats with the initiation by the UNESCO General Information Programmer in April 1978 in Taormina, Sicily was convened to study the desirability and feasibility of establishing maximum compatibility between existing bibliographic exchange formats. The Symposium was organized by UNISIST International Centre for Bibliographic Description in collaboration with International Council of Scientific Unions Abstracting Board, IFLA and ISO.

3.3.322 GENESIS OF CCF

After long deliberations by the experts, the Adhoc Group arrived at consensus for drafting the CCF with the following guide lines:

1.      That the structure of the new format would be in accordance with the ISO – 2709.

2.      That the core record would consist of a small number of mandatory data elements essential to bibliographic description, identified in a standard manner.

3.      That the core record would be larger in number by adding optional data elements, identified in a standard manner.

4.      That a standard technique would be developed for accommodating levels, relationships, and links between bibliographic entities.

5.      Most significantly it was also recommended that CCF should provide a meaningful link between the major exchange formats basing on ISBD.

6.      Also resolved that to device a technique to establish relationship between bibliographic records and between elements within bibliographic records.

The concept of the record segment was developed and later refined and finally a method for designating relationship between records, segments and fields was duly approved by the Group. Consequently the first edition of CCF was published in 1984 and subsequently the second edition was brought out in 1988.V arious bibliographic agencies in Asia, North and South America and Europe recommended changes which were later on duly incorporated into this new edition.

3.9.2 RATIONALE

Within an information system, the records which form the database will usually exist in a number of separate but highly compatible formats. At least there will be:

·         A format in which the records will be input to the system,

·         A format best suited to long – term storage,

·         A format to facilitate retrieval, and

·         A format in which records will be displayed.

3. 9.3 NEED OF CCF

The need of CCF is remarkably significant if two or more organizations intend to exchange records with one another. It cannot be achieved unless and until each of these organizations come to an agreement to adopt common standard format for exchange purposes.

The information interchange within that country is possible so also will be greatly facilitated both technically and economically if there is a single national standard exchange format. Whereas, if the standard format of each country is different from all others, then it will be more problematic and complex to have international information interchange among national bibliographic agencies since a number of computer programs that must be written to accommodate the translation of records form one format to another.

The most significant factor is to go for a common and compatible format to achieve uniformity and consistency among different kinds of agencies creating bibliographic records.

3.9.4 SCOPE

The CCF is basically designed to provide a standard format for three major

purposes :

1.      To permit the exchange of bibliographic records between the groups of libraries and the abstracting and indexing services.

2.      To permit a bibliographic agency to use a single set of computer programs to manipulate bibliographic records received from both the libraries and the abstracting and indexing services.

3.      To serve as the basis of a format for an agency’s own bibliographic database, by providing a list of useful data elements.

3. 9.5 USES

These uses have been accommodated in the following ways:

1.      By specifying a small number of mandatory data elements which are recognized by all sectors of the information community as essential in order to identifying an item.

2.      By providing mandatory data elements that are sufficiently flexible to accommodate varying descriptive practices. Each field and subfield indicates whether-the use of that data element is mandatory or optional.

3.      By providing a number of optional elements which may be us eful to describe an item according to the practices of the agency which cr eates the record.

4.      By providing a mechanism for linking records and segments of records without imposing on the originating agency any uniform practice regarding the treatment of related groups of records or data elements.

3. 9.6 STRUCTURE

The record structure of the Common Communication Format comprises a specific implementation of the International standard ISO – 2709; Each CCF consists of four major parts:

A.    Record Label

B.     Directory

C.     Data fields

D.    Record Separator

The Diagrammatic Represent on of the CCF Record Structure has been given in Appendix – 2 for better understanding of the reders.

RECORD LABEL

Each CCF record begins with a fixed-length label of 24 characters to provide parameter to process record.

DIRECTORY

The directory is a table containing a variable number of fourteen -character entries; the table is terminated by a field separator character. Each directory entry corresponds to an occurrence of a data field in the record, and is divided into five parts:

1.      Tag

2.      Length of data field

3.      Starting character position

4.      Segment identifier

5.      Occurrence identifier

DATA FIELDS

A data field consists of.

1.      Indicators

2.      One or more subfield each of which is preceded by a subfield identifier.

3.      A data field separator

RECORD SEPERATOR

The record separator (Character 1/13 of ISO 646) is the final character of the record. It follows the field separator of the field data field of the record.

3.9.7 FEATURES OF CCF:

The unique features of CCF attract many institutions, information centers, and other organization of various countries are mentioned as under:

(1)    As all the necessary data elements are incorporated, it can be used to produce catalogue cards

(2)    No cataloguing rules are imposed as it is user friendly and rather catalogue friendly since .

(3)    As it is a flexible and very popular format, many developing countries are adopting it for the creation of bibliography records in machine readable form;

Absolutely there is no problem for Bibliographic Agencies following AACR2 can be conveniently converted to CCF format.

(4) Provision of basic data elements facilitate for optional elements and private fields thus enabling an agency to incorporate new standard elements considered important.

(5) It facilitates a library and bibliographic agency to use a single use of computer program for the exchange of data.

(6) Provision of the mandatory data elements which ar e flexible and can accommodate verifying descriptive practices.

(7) Its simple set of data elements that can be used at any bibliographic level and are dissociated from cataloguing codes.

(8) It is the logically defined record structure which uses the fourth element of the ISO 2709 directory to denote the bibliographic level and filed occurre nce.

(9) CCF is specifically designed for retrieval and output within an institution. It neither includes its own cataloguing rules nrecommends any particular cataloguing code oriented towards any specific type of output format.

3.4.        Summary :

This module clearly discusses about bibliographic description, the development of ISBD and later on bibliographic formats for other special materials like ISBD (AV), ISBD (CM), ISBD (CF), ISBD (CR) and ISBD (ER) so as to help the catalogues for the purpose of cataloguing. The objectives, purposes and characteristics are explained. Also the 8 areas of description of ISBD have been mentioned with the help of an entry showing the organization of items of information of a document. Further, the genesis, objectives, uses, structure and features of CCF have also been discussed. The structure of CCF have been explained by citing a diagram for better understanding.

Interesting facts :

• ISBD facilitates to make records generating from different sources interchangeable so as to go for global networking.
• The characteristics of ISBD are its comprehensiveness and fixed order of data elements.
• CCF facilitates a library and bibliographic agency to use a single set of computer program for the exchange of data.
• Its simple set of data elements that can be used at any bibliographic level and are free from imposition of catalogue codes.
• CCF provides a meaningful link between the major exchange formats basing on ISBD.
• The core record will be larger in number by adding optional data elements identified in a standard number.
• It is user friendly and rather catalogue friendly.
• Facilitates for creation of bibliography records in machine – readable form Bibliographic Agencies following AACR-2 can be easily converted to CCF format