The British Library and SUNCAT

1. The British Library and SUNCAT Brenda Young The British Library Bibliographic Development

2. The British Library: a (very) short history • The British Library Act 1972 Combined: • British Museum library departments • National Central Library • National Lending Library for Science and Technology NCL & NLLST became the British Library Lending Division

3. The British Library: a (very) short history The following were added in 1974: • British National Bibliography • Office for Scientific and Technical Information Added later: • India Office Library and Records (1982) • British Institute of Recorded Sound (1984) See http://www.bl.uk/about/history.html

4. MARC records Blaise (British Library Automated Information Service) established in 1977 • UKMARC i.e. British National Bibliography • LCMARC i.e. Library of Congress Books All • BL catalogues added later • H&SS ( Humanities and Social Sciences - 1984) • SRIS (Science Reference and Information Service - 1987) • BLC (British Library Catalogue - 1988-1991) • DSC Serials ( Document Supply Centre - 1995) • Other databases which include serial records • BNB • ISSN (International Standared Serial Number)

5. Integrated Library System • Aleph implemented 2004 • All the BL’s records in a single catalogue for the first time • One bibliographic record per title • Integration of non-bibliographic records also required • Long period of preparation preceded implementation

6. Problems with the data • Duplication of records • Varying quality • DSC serials • Converted to MARC from an in-house format • Very little data in the records • Included SRIS holdings • BLC • Keyboarded from printed catalogue • Lack of information and subfield coding • SRIS • BNB numbers, DDC and LCSH removed • All made the matching and merging a very complex process

7. Migration to Aleph Main tasks • Standardise the bibliographic data • Convert the data to MARC 21 • Convert the data to UNICODE • Enhance the records by adding • ISSN • Key titles • Library of Congress Subject Headings • Dewey numbers • Over 500,000 records enhanced in this way

8. SUNCAT • A challenge! • An opportunity!

9. BL contribution to SUNCAT • Original dataset of 698,137 records supplied • Supply monthly update files of records flagged as new, changed or deleted • Records are cleaned before submitting them i.e. all local and Aleph fields removed • Updates have now been loaded to SUNCAT

10. BL contribution to SUNCAT • Dedicated SUNCAT team working on enhancing records • 4 full-time equivalent staff; 2 full-time, 4 part-time • Based in Data Quality Team • Priority work on Inside titles • Work from list of titles on spreadsheet • On Aleph, merge duplicate records, copy records to be deleted to deletions library • Use external sources: COPAC, OCLC, ISSN Portal, SUNCAT • Retrieve items from collections when necessary • Have processed 23,000 records representing 5,000 titles • New and changed records also contributed by mainstream serials cataloguers

11. ISSN requests • We can only fulfill requests for ISSN for UK titles • We expect requesting library to make every effort to find out if an ISSN already exists • We need evidence of the publication; photocopies are acceptable • We need as much information as possible • Requests from SUNCAT contributors will be dealt with by the SUNCAT Team • Guidelines are to be posted on the SUNCAT web pages

12. Any questions?