A UNIMARC structure for the catalogue of electronic resources of the Italian Telematic Library (BIT)

Abstract

With the support of the Library, Archive and Museum Service of the University of Pisa, the new catalogue of texts included in the Italian Telematic Library (BIT) was created using the UNIMARC format with Aleph 500 software.
The BIT catalogue, including all standard bibliographic data related to the electronic texts of the Italian Telematic Library and the printed editions (or other materials) used as text sources, may be consulted starting from the homepage of the Library, Archive and Museum Service of the University of Pisa at the URL <http://sba.adm.unipi.it:4505/ALEPH/RANDOM5479768/start/bit01?>.
The study of the catalogue templates, which began towards mid 2001, initially led to the experimentation of a single-record approach: a record for the electronic resource with information related to the reference edition (source of the text) embedded within it through the use of UNIMARC link fields.
However, the single-record approach did not allow for the recording of all information related to complex reference editions (e.g., a single play in a collection, sometimes a multipart publication). It was decided therefore to opt for a multilevel structure of the catalogue, reflecting in two or more bibliographic records (linked to appropriate authority records, not yet implemented) the four entities relevant to the BIT catalogue, that is to say the Work, the Text, the Reference Edition and the Electronic Edition.
Apart from the usual UNIMARC fields, the template for Electronic Editions includes some special or little-used elements, tailored to record some data about BIT resources that were needed as additional access points or search filters.
At the same time, an analysis was carried out for the creation of the user interface screens, requiring special search and selection features. The search modes that can be used in the BIT catalogue, the general layout of which has been made similar to that of the catalogue of the University of Pisa, are of three types: word (or standard) search, browse and code search.
The catalogue of the Italian Telematic Library, which, due to its content, is a tool aimed above all, but not exclusively, at a specialist public, is therefore a first attempt towards an extended application of the UNIMARC format within the structure of an Italian OPAC.