Translations of ISBD on IFLANET

A new page on translations of ISBD (International Standard Bibliographic Description) Consolidated Edition was created today on IFLANET:

http://www.ifla.org/VII/s13/pubs/isbd-trans.htm

where the Chinese version is the first to appear in the world.

Staff Training during System Upgrading

During the Aleph500 system upgrading, acquisitions and cataloging librarians are unable to do their work in the National Library of China from March 24 to March 30. The Chinese Acquisitions & Cataloging Department arranged a series of training courses on Classified Chinese Thesaurus, authority control, bibliographic description and analysis of problems in bibliographic records. About 100 staff members attended every training course.

The objective of the training courses is to raise the quality awareness of catalogers and to improve the quality control of bibliographic records in the library.

Chinese Version of ISBD Consolidated Edition Published

Today, I received the first sample copy of the Chinese version of the International standard bibliographic description (ISBD) Preliminary consolidated ed. (ISBD Consolidated Edition).

I began the translation in April 2007, and completed it in October, after its publication in August 2007. I think it is the first translation in the world.

NLC Recruiting New Staff

National Library of China is recruiting new staff from university graduates. Yesterday, I (and eight of my colleagues in the Chinese Acquisitions & Cataloging Department) participated in the interview meeting. The meeting is something like a fair, and there was a booth for every department. 150 participants, mostly with master degrees, received interviews of various departments. I interviewed 24 applicants and selected 15 from them.

NLC to Upgrade its Aleph500 System

The National Library of China will implement its upgrading of its Aleph500 system from version 14 to version 16 during March, 24 0:00-March 30, 24:00. Acquisitions and cataloging librarians will not be able to work during this period of time, and will receive training courses for a couple of days.

Chinese Version of ISBD Consolidated Edition to Appear

The Chinese version of the preliminary consolidated edition of ISBD (International Standard Bibliographic Description) is expected to be published late this month.

Today, I reviewed the cover design of the Chinese version of ISBD, and made final check of some words and the overall typesetting of the book. Because the book contains many punctuations and special characters (including Greek, Cyrillic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean ... scripts), I have to check the final proof very carefully for the publisher who is unable to do so.

I think Chinese National Standard (GB) will also be revised according to the ISBD Consolidated Edition.

FRBR Chinese Version Available Online

The Chinese version of FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records) is now available online:

IFLA website: http://www.ifla.org/VII/s13/frbr/frbr-zh.pdf
Dr. Ben Gu's Personal Website: http://www.bengu.cn/homepage/paper/FRBR_Chinese.pdf

FRBR is one of the most important documents in bibliographic control, and has had great influence on standards in library cataloging since its publication in 1998.

The Chinese translation is done collectively by WANG Shaoping (Shanghai Jiao Tong University Libraries), WANG Jing (CALIS Online Cataloging Center), LIN Ming (Peking University Library), LIU Suqing (Peking University Library), JI Lu'en (Shanghai Library) and GU Ben (National Library of China).