Basic bibliographic control: plans for a world system

A necessary foundation of library and information services is knowledge of what documentary material exists. Since no field of knowledge and no geographical area can generate within itself all the information it needs, a complete and universal record is required. While the creation of such a record at a single centre is a Utopian ideal, improvements in national records and in techniques of international communication have made a worldwide co‐operative system a realistic goal. Under the title ‘Universal Bibliographic Control’ (UBC), IFLA—working in association with Unesco and other bodies—is establishing a programme to promote an international network of bibliographic agencies. Problems to be solved are: on the national level, complete coverage of national output and speed of production of the record; on the international level, standardization of formats and the creation of co‐ordinating machinery. The UBC programme is complementary to that of UNISIST: a future integrated bibliographic and information system might be based on two interrelated categories of records—national records of separate publications, unrestricted in subject‐matter, and international records of contributions to knowledge (whether separate publications or not), limited to particular subject fields.