48. évfolyam, 2002. 4. szám

Archívum

The international control and processing of serials – international trends and the Hungarian environment
(The Hungarian practice of ISSN control and its international context)

GAZDAG Tiborné
 

Hungary has been taking part in the work of the international serial control system of ISSN (International Standard Serial Number) since its foundation in 1976. By now, periodicals have gone through essential changes of format (with the appearance of the electronic version of publications), and the standards of their processing had to be reconsidered. Special forms of publication on the Internet make it impossible to distinguish between the parts, issues characteristic of serials, and to recognise their numbering. A new model of document typology had to be elaborated (J. Hirons, C. Graham, R. Reynolds) that is based on the method of the publication of the serial, and imposes a superordinate category above the notion of serial, that of the continuing resource, in which integrative, constantly updated documents belong beside serials. An information source belonging to any category may appear on any media. Parallel with the development of the model, the revision of the part of AACR2 dealing with serials, as well as of the ISBD(S) and of the ISDS Manual, the manual of the registry system of ISSN, was also started. ISBD(CR), valid for any continuing resource has come into being, and the Hungarian regulation (KSZ3) dealing with serials only was also prepared. The rules of bibliographic description change, so do the computer applications, and the standard exchange formats (MARC 21) are improved. When the registration of distant information sources started, the scope of the application of international standard numbers had to be revised. The International Centre of ISSN would like to achieve the complete control of serial publications, while in the case of integrating documents, it prefers the principle of selectivity. However, the practice of national institutions, the peculiarities of collection development may have an impact upon the realization of the principles of control. The practice of the Hungarian national library, its criteria taken into account when assigning a standard number is an example of this.

Országos Széchényi Könyvtár Észrevételek