Catalogs have for centuries been the main tool that enabled users to search for items in a library by author, title, or subject. A catalog can be interpreted as a set of bibliographic records, where each record acts as a surrogate for a publication. Every record describes a specific publication and contains the data that is used to create the indexes of search systems and the information that is presented to the user. Bibliographic records are often captured and exchanged by the use of the MARC format. Although there are numerous ”dialects” of the MARC format in use, they are usually crafted on the same basis and are interoperable with each other —to a certain extent. The data model of a MARC-based catalog, however, is ”[...] extremely non-normalized with excessive replication of data” [1]. For instance, a literary work that exists in numerous editions and translations is likely to yield a large result set because each edition or translation is represented by an individual record, that is unrelated to other records that describe the same work.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Authors and Affiliations

1. Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Computer and Automation Research Institute, Budapest, Hungary

   Christian Mönch

2. Department of Computer and Information Science, Norwegian University for Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

   Trond Aalberg

Editors and Affiliations

1. NetLab, Knowledge Technologies Group, Lund University Libraries, P.O. Box 134, 22100, Lund, Sweden

   Traugott Koch

2. Dept. of Computer and Information Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology,  

   Ingeborg Torvik Sølvberg

Reprints and permissions

© 2003 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

Policies and ethics