In defence of bibliographic standards Available to Purchase

The last few years have seen considerable advances in the field of computerised bibliographic control. In addition to the mainframe‐based systems such as MARC, there has been increasing interest in mini‐ and microcomputer systems for both technical processing and information retrieval. With these developments has come a re‐examination of the usefulness of bibliographic standards which have emerged since libraries started facing the needs of interlibrary communication. This reconsideration of standards has prompted among many librarians the idea that the advent of computerised systems means the end of the need for standardisation. There is a general feeling that it is no longer necessary to require cataloguers (if they figure at all in the argument anyway) to create records in the rigorous way demanded by the likes of the Anglo‐American cataloguing rules (AACR). The power of the computer, it is felt, obviates the sophisticated and resource‐wasting processing that goes on in cataloguing departments; and features such as boolean searching, truncation, etc, can get over the need for accurate specification of authors' names or the titles of documents.