Vine Volume 2 Issue 2 1972

1. BLCMP has just published a document describing the Project's use of the MARC format:‐ BLCMP MARC Manual: input procedures for monographs cataloguing. With supplement: music and sound recordings. BLCMP, 1972. £1.50. ISBN 0 903154 03X. This is primarily an instruction manual for BLCMP staff but is likely to be of interest both to other MARC users and to those contemplating automation of cataloguing. The manual parallels the BNB MARC Documentation Service publication no.5; it describes the format for cataloguing monographs as it is applied by BLCMP, and shows how, on occasion, this differs from BNB practice. The format in use for serials cataloguing has already been described in MASS Working Paper no.1, 1970. In the United States the tendency appears to be for the Library of Congress to develop different, not necessarily compatible, formats for different media. In the UK, however, it is regarded as important, largely for economy of program development, that all media should conform to a basic format with extensions to it for special media. This is the case with the BLCMP cataloguing format for music and sound recordings and serials.