Library formats

Well, I took some time to post the remaining of my notes.  I shouldn’t take that long but I was catching up with some Python “de-rusting” and learning plus some other projects that will appear in the latests posts.

Well, the library formats post is about a meeting that I had explaining a bit about the transition from the old formats and systems to what is used today.  Some of the formats are still in use and library services has too many legacy systems that has to be taken into consideration.

So what I could gather is that Marc 21 (format for book catalogue – records) was the very first model and many of its concepts are still in use. After that UNIMARC was the Europe version, then it came AACR2 (with some rules of population).

The Library Management System became Integrated Management System and there was something still to consider the out-of-print materials like manuscripts and images.

OLIS used GeocAdvance.

OPAC was the catalogue for circulation.

The idea was to modernise and not have only hardcopy material for search in the library but a system of resource and discovery.

The ultimate goal is to have the material for long term preservation and that’s when DAMS, FutureArch and other projects will shine.

A simple schema of the relations:

Projects schema