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Formats for the exchange of bibliographic data use the ISO 2709 record structure which started out as the structure for the Library of Congress MARC format. The UNISIST Reference Manual was an early international exchange format developed by ICSU‐AB and Unesco and included cataloguing rules suitable for use by A & I Services. The national libraries developed UNIMARC under IFLA auspices as their exchange format since the national formats were not totally compatible. Unesco, concerned about the lack of compatibility between the major international exchange formats, sponsored a symposium, resulting from which a Common Communication Format was developed and ISO began work on a data element directory. International formats also exist for nuclear and agricultural information as well as for serials data. Other formats exist which are used internationally and have different structural characteristics. The International MARC Network Study Steering Committee has taken an interest in the exchange of bibliographic data and has organized a test of UNIMARC and supervised a UNIMARC Handbook to clarify the format. International exchange formats tend to acquire accompanying cataloguing rules: indeed they will only be really effective if there are internationally accepted cataloguing rules and authority files.

The purpose of this paper is to present the software architecture of the university’s union catalogue in Novi Sad, Serbia. The university’s union catalogue would comprise the collections of 14 academic libraries.

The basis of this paper is a case study of developing a software solution for the union catalogue of the University of Novi Sad in Serbia. The solution principles of object-oriented modelling are applied to describe the software architecture. Specifically, the unified modeling language (UML) component and sequence diagrams are used. The database model is described by using a physical data model.

Through the research of related papers and, taking into consideration the problem of creating a university union catalogue, it is concluded that the best approach is to combine the idea of a virtual and a physical union catalogue. Records are stored in one physical union catalogue, while the holdings data are stored in the local library management systems (LMSs) organized in the form of virtual union catalogues. Because academic libraries often use LMSs from different vendors, interoperable communication between those LMSs and the union catalogue is provided through the usage of standard library protocols for information retrieval (Search and Retrieve URL [SRU], SRU Record Update and NISO Circulation Interchange Protocol [NCIP]).

The development of a union catalogue for the University of Novi Sad is in its test phase, and, at this moment, only a software solution supporting the functionalities of a union catalogue has been created.

By introducing a university union catalogue, students would be able to search the collections of all the university libraries by using a single portal. Their results would indicate whether a book is available and from which library it is available to borrow.

Originality of this software architecture lies in the usage of standard library protocols. The described architecture enables the addition of new members to the university union catalogue, regardless of which LMS the library uses.

In recent years the UNIMARC format has come to be more widely used as a method of facilitating the international exchange of bibliographic data. This is due, in part, to a number of projects funded by the European Union as part of the Libraries Programme. This paper provides an overview of the state of such projects as reported to a workshop on the UNIMARC format held in Luxembourg in September 1996. Projects briefly described in this overview include: UseMARCON, CoBRA UNIMARC, CoBRA AUTHOR, ONE, CHASE, DELICAT and BIBLINK. Other initiatives related to UNIMARC by IFLA and OCLC are also described. The paper concludes with the main conclusions arising from the workshop addressing the areas of formats, authority control, character sets and electronic publications.

A year ago, in December 1987, CURL (The Consortium of University Research Libraries) received funding from the UGC to establish a pilot project for resource sharing, using the facilities of the JANET network. The money was provided to facilitate the exchange of information about library acquisitions and holdings and to make efficient arrangements for the exchange of catalogue data. This article does not discuss the broad objectives of this CURL project nor its role in the currently changing patterns of record supply and resource sharing in the UK. A more general article by the founders of CURL, D. J. Foskett and F. W. Ratcliffe, is to be published shortly. VINE has set out to look principally at the technical aspects of the project, especially the work involved in mounting large files and the software used. This is CATS, the online catalogue software, written in FORTRAN 77, which was developed at Cambridge University Library [see VINE, 63, 21–25].

The nature and purpose of the catalogue has been the focus of considerable and vigorous debate during the past decade. This article attempts to identify those topics which have been the most significant causes of the debate and discusses: the need for catalogues; users and non‐users; the nature of the bibliographic record and catalogue entry; the development of UK and LC MARC; standards, including exchange formats, the development of the ISBD, and the concept of UBC (Universal Bibliographic Control); the Anglo‐American Cataloguing Rules and the controversy over the implementation of AACR2; COM catalogues; subsets of the MARC record; co‐operatives, networks and resource sharing; and the development of subject access methods better suited to COM and online catalogues. The relevance of catalogue research activities at Bath University and elsewhere is highlighted.

In the former Yugoslavia and Soviet Bloc countries of Central and Eastern Europe most information technology was unavailable, unaffordable or discouraged for forty years. These countries realise that they must improve their internal infrastructures if they are to become integral parts of the global information infrastructure. We report the results of a mail survey conducted in late 1994 and early 1995 of seventy research libraries in Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia, building on the findings from interviews conducted with 300 persons in the region in 1993–1994. Results show that these libraries are acquiring automated processing systems, CD‐ROM databases, and connections to computer networks at a rapid rate and that automation activity has increased substantially since 1989; we report specific data on system implementation and network services by country and by type of library. ‘Access’ is their top reason to automate, which appears to mean placing the catalogue online with better search capabilities and putting items on the shelves faster — but does not necessarily mean improvements in self‐service for library users. Co‐operation and standards are highly‐ranked automation goals, yet we find anomalous results on each. Management goals focus more on speed and processing than on management information, staffing or advancing the mission of the parent organisation. Management of human resources ranks low, despite the need for wider staff involvement in the system selection process, education of technically‐trained library professionals, continuing training of staff and training of library users. We conclude with implications of these results for the region.

Standards exist for many aspects of scientific and technical information and its management. This paper examines standardization from the perspective of an ‘ideal information scenario’. It focuses both on the older well‐established standards and those standards currently under development which are most important for information management. It concludes with a proposed approach for planning standards activity.