UNIMARC UNIMARC and and thethe PortuguesePortuguese NationalNational

BibliographicBibliographic DatabaseDatabase ––PORBASEPORBASE

Paulo Leitão (Director of Innovation and Development Services)

Maria Luísa Santos (Head of PORBASE Division)

National Library – Portugal

UNIMARC Users Group - 1st MeetingLisbon, 21 March 2006

UNIMARC

• Chosen by the National Librarysince the beginning of its automation process (1985)

• Also chosen as the national format to be adopted by PORBASE – the National Bibliographic Database(the Union Catalogue of Portuguese Libraries)

Actions to improve the use ofUNIMARC format byPortuguese Libraries

• Format handbooks translations• Training courses• Software applications• Technical advice• Working sessions

Unimarc Handbookstranslations

• 1989 – First UNIMARC Handbookstranslation to Portuguese:–UNIMARC Bibliographic Format–UNIMARC Authority Format (still

provisional at the date)

• New translations being made, according to the more recent editions

Training courses since1987

•UNIMARC Bibliographic Format•UNIMARC Authority Format•UNIMARC new developments•UNIMARC applied to specificdocuments

• Electronic documents

• Component parts• Old monographic publications

•UNIMARC recycling actions

Software applications

• National Library: – National distributor of UNESCO software

CDS/ISIS since the middle of the 80’s– Has develloped several software applications

based on this system. The most recent one(based in WinISIS) is distributed to more than700 institutions and has more than 2 400 licences in use.

– Facilitates the use of this software applicationby libraries from the Portuguese officialspeaking countries (there are many usersfrom Africa and Timor)

PORBASE and UNIMARC

• Automatic systems for librarymanagement distributed in Portugal implement UNIMARC, once it is the formatadopted by the cooperative NationalBibliographic Database – PORBASE

• Cooperative libraries (164, including theNational Library) are respecting thisformat

PORBASE and UNIMARC

• Technical documents sent by theNational Library to the cooperativelibraries:– Specifications and application examples of

UNIMARC– Information about changes in the format

• Future use of UNIMARC Registry will be a way of bringing up-to-date a more quick process

PORBASE and UNIMARC

• Reports automatically produced byanalysis and quality control recentlyapplied to cooperative librariesrecords show major difficulties informat use:–Encoded information block (1XX)– Indicators (in all the fields)–Block 7XX – Field 801 not completed

PORBASE and UNIMARC

• Difficulties more related with aninsufficient application of rules and with a weak understanding of howimportant some fields and codedelements are for future retrieval thanwith format complexity

• Efforts are being made to preventthese situations (technicaldocuments, training courses...)

PORBASE – UNIMARC Bibliographic record

PORBASE – UNIMARC bibliographic record

PORBASE – UNIMARC bibliographic record

PORBASE – UNIMARC bibliographic record

PORBASE – UNIMARC authorityrecord

PORBASE – UNIMARC authorityrecord