As of 22 April 2009 IFLA has a totally redesigned new website
This old website and all of its content will stay on as archive – http://archive.ifla.org
As of 22 April 2009 IFLA has a totally redesigned new website
This old website and all of its content will stay on as archive – http://archive.ifla.org
The ISBD Review Group presents a draft of a new Area 0 for the consolidated ISBD.
Attempting to provide improved guidance regarding the use of the ISBDs for bibliographic description of resources in multiple formats, and recognizing the increasing incidence of resources published in more than one physical medium and the challenges that these resources pose for bibliographic control, the ISBD Review Group appointed a task force in 2003 to investigate the general material designation (GMD).
The Working Group on General Material Designations of the IFLA Meeting of Experts on an International Cataloguing Code (IME ICC) held in Frankfurt in 2003 suggested that the GMD seemed unsatisfactory because the presence of the content of the resource and of the presentation of the resource were mixed, confusing more than clarifying. Other comments were on its present location, interrupting the logical order of the title information. It was also thought that the GMD was important enough to be at the beginning of the record, and that it should not be optional as it currently is.
The ISBD Material Designation Study Group agreed on the importance and primacy of the GMD as an “early warning device” for catalogue users. The group proposed the creation of a separate, unique, high-level component for recording in bibliographic records. The ISBD Review Group charged the Study Group with preparing a definitive text.
The draft takes into account the recommendations made by the Working Group on General Material Designations of the IME ICC. In addition, with the issuance of the Consolidated ISBD, the release of version 1.0 of the RDA/ONIX Framework for Resource Categorization, and the subsequent drafts of Resource Description and Access (RDA) incorporating the RDA/ONIX Framework, the ISBD Material Designation Study Group has prepared the proposed area 0 in line with the RDA draft. These documents have facilitated immensely the work of the Study Group as it addresses the structure and terminology of an independent ISBD component for content/carrier.
Please note that a separate document accompanying the draft contains examples intended only to illustrate the application of the proposed Area 0. These examples will not be a part of the final text of Area 0.
We are very interested in hearing responses about this. Following worldwide review, the ISBD Review Group will consider all the comments and suggestions made and revise the draft. After this revision it will be sent for approval by the Cataloguing Section, and, following approval, the ISBD will be updated.Please respond to this draft no later than 30 January 2009. The ISBD Review Group is working on a revised Consolidated ISBD, and the decisions about area 0 will be incorporated into that text.
Please send your comments and suggestions to Elena Escolano, chair of the ISBD Review Group (elena.escolano@bne.es) and Lynne Howarth, chair of the Material Designation Study Group (lynne.howarth@utoronto.ca).
Thank you all in advance for your efforts.
Elena Escolano Rodríguez
Chair, ISBD Review Group
