A data standard for bibliography

This data standard was published as part of Recording England's past: a data standard for the extended National Archaeological Record (RCHME & ACAO, 1993, pp 52-70). It was devised by Dr Mike Heyworth in the early years of the BAB project and it identifies the basic data components of bibliographic records in the format used by BAA, BAB and BIAB. The standard has now been developed into a detailed Functional specification, by Steve Stead, which sets out the relational model used for the BIAB bibliographic database.

The data standard for bibliography, which has been adopted by the Working Party on Information Standards (convened by Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England/English Heritage/Association of County Archaeological Officers), is based around the recommendations of the British Standards Institution as expressed in British Standard recommendations for references to published material (BS 1629 : 1989). The aim of this standard was to define a way of citing one document by another, for which short descriptions, sufficient only to identify a source unambiguously and to indicate its nature, are adequate, rather than to provide fully detailed bibliographic descriptions appropriate for large libraries.

This guideline is followed in the proposed data standard, the aim of which is to allow sufficient information to be held in a computerised system to allow the direct production of full bibliographic references in different formats according to the type of reference required. It uses the terms defined by the British Standard wherever possible (see Appendix 1).

The basic order of elements in Harvard style references, according to BS 1629, should be:

1. originator, if any;
2. year;
3. title;
4. material designation, if any;
5. production (publisher or equivalent);
6. numeration within the item

This order is followed in the proposed data standard, though of course the data elements can be rearranged in any required order when output from a computerised system.

A summary of the data standard is given in Appendix 2, with examples of its application in Appendix 3. Detailed descriptions are then provided in Appendix 4 for each individual field.

Dr M Heyworth

December 1991

APPENDIX ONE
Definition of terms (from BS 1629: 1989)

Document

A combination of a medium and the information recorded upon it.

Monograph

A publication in print or non-print form, complete in itself or intended to be completed in a finite number of parts.

Originator

The person, people or organization responsible for the intellectual content of a document or contribution

Reference

A set of data describing a document or part of a document, sufficiently precise and detailed to identify it and to enable it to be located.

Serial

A publication in print or non-print form, issued in successive parts, usually having numerical or chronological designations, and intended to be continued indefinitely.

Series

A group of monographs, serials or other publications sharing a common title, possibly numbered.

APPENDIX TWO
Summary of data standard for bibliography in archaeology (expanded descriptions of the fields, including defined codes, are given in Appendix 4)

APPENDIX THREE
Examples of the application of the proposed data standard

APPENDIX FOUR
Details of the standard

This page was last updated on 4 December 1998