Page 267 - DLIS002_KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATION CLASSIFICATION AND CATALOGUING THEORY

Knowledge Organization: Classification and Cataloguing Theory

Notes Self Assessment

State whether the following statements are true or false:
13. If the classes of an array occur contiguously in space, they may be arranged in a parallel
spatial sequence.

14. The classes in an array may not be arranged in the sequence of the decreasing quantity of
published documents on them.
15. If the classes in an array show same degrees of complexity, they are arranged in the
sequence of increasing complexity.

14.6 International Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD)

Publishing is indispensable in the knowledge industry. Publishers are mediators, who transmit,
maintain, and support data. Publishing is important to national development because of the
importance of information dissemination and preservation of culture and history. International
Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD) is a standard for descriptive cataloguing that facilitates
the exchange of bibliographic records throughout the international library and information
community. It also gives guidance to publishers on what elements should be present in published
works (e.g., author, title, publisher.) ISBD was developed by the International Federation of
Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) and has been incorporated into the Anglo-American
Cataloguing Rules, 2nd edition (AACR2). ISBD helps identify a publication’s title, imprint,
pagination, size, and so on, in a standard way (Gredley and Hopkinson, 1990). In 1975, the
National Library of Nigeria, in collaboration with the Department of Library Studies, University
of Ibadan and IFLA International office for UBC in London, organized a workshop to introduce
ISBD to Nigerian librarians. Nigeria began to use ISBD in its national bibliography that same
year (Aje, 1977).
The significance of this was to help record the physical and in identifying the characteristics of
a publication, including title, imprint and pagination, size, binding information, etc.
ISBD is very important to publishers because it helps users to identify basic information easily.
To library users, especially researchers, preliminary information is very important. The use of
ISBD in published books helps identify that basic information. When the ISBD standard is not
used, there may be a long search for information that should have taken only a few minutes.

The International Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD) is the standard that specifies the
requirements for describing and identifying the most common types of published resources in
library collections. The ISBD also orders the elements of the description, and specifies punctuation
system.
Until 2007 there were seven specialised ISBDs for resources, plus a General ISBD. In 2003, the
ISBD Review Group, charged with maintaining and updating these standards, decided to create
a Study Group on the future direction of ISBDs in response to their concern at the discovery of
ambiguities and inconsistencies in the stipulations of different ISBDs. This Study Group decided
that consolidation of all the ISBDs was viable, and started to prepare a definitive text, the result
of which was the consolidated ISBD. To achieve this, some prior steps were necessary, such as the
revision of the General Material Designation, the result of which was the new Area.

The consolidated ISBD standardises the cataloguing requirements for different types of resources,
and makes it easier to update requirements. Unification has also made it possible to update the
obligatory nature of an element of information, achieving greater conformity with the
information requirements established in the FRBR.

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