Bibliographic Control

J.A.AmaraweeraLecturer

Faculty of ArtsMCHE

Bibliographic controlThe skill or art of organizing knowledge for retrieval

“Bibliographic control comprises the creation, storage, manipulation, and retrieval of bibliographic data. Catalogers produce the tools that are necessary for bibliographic control to function.”

Larry Osborne

Definition

• Bibliographic control• A broad term encompassing all the activities

involved in creating, organizing, managing, and maintaining the file of bibliographic records representing the items held in a library or archival collection, or the sources listed in an index or database, to facilitate access to the information contained in them.

[Source: ODLIS - http://lu.com/odlis/search.cfm ]

• Bibliographic control includes :• the standardization of

bibliographic description and subject access by means of uniform catalog code, classification systems, name authorities, and preferred headings; the creation and maintenance of catalogs, union lists, and finding aids; and the provision of physical access to the items in the collection.

• [Source: ODLIS - http://lu.com/odlis/search.cfm ]

Tools for bibliographic control

Bibliographies Databases

Indexes Catalogs

• What is a Bibliography• It is a systematic list or enumeration of written

work(s) by a specific author or on a given subject, or that share one or more common characteristics (language, form, period, place of publication, etc.).

• In the context of scholarly publication, a list of references to sources cited in the text of an article or book, or suggested by the author for further reading, usually appearing at the end of the work.

[ Source: ODLIS ]

Types of Bibliographies• Analytical bibliography• Annotated bibliography • Biobibliography • Current bibliography • National bibliography • Period bibliography • Retrospective bibliography and• Selective bibliography

Databases• A large, regularly updated file of digitized

information (bibliographic records, abstracts, full-text documents, directory entries, images, statistics, etc.) related to a specific subject or field, consisting of records of uniform format organized for ease and speed of search and retrieval and managed with the aid of database management system (DBMS) software.

• [Source: ODLIS - http://lu.com/odlis/search.cfm ]

Indexes

• An alphabetically arranged list of headings consisting of the personal names, places, and subjects treated in a written work, with page numbers to refer the reader to the point in the text at which information pertaining to the heading is found.

• [Source: ODLIS]

• In single-volume works of reference and nonfiction, any indexes appear at the end of the back matter. In a multivolume work, they are found at the end of the last volume. In very large multivolume reference works, the last volume may be devoted entirely to indexes. Works of fiction are rarely indexed. The publisher of a periodical may provide an index to each volume at the end of the last issue of the publication year.

Catalogue• A comprehensive list of the books, periodicals,

maps, and other materials in a given collection, arranged in systematic order to facilitate retrieval (usually alphabetically by author, title, and/or subject).

• In most modern libraries, the card catalog has been converted to machine-readable bibliographic records and is available online.

[Source: ODLIS]