UK Bibliographic Standards Committee

At its meeting on 15 June 2004, the Rare Books Group (RBG) Committee agreed that in principle it supported the establishment of a Bibliographic Standards Committee (BSC) as a sub-committee of the RBG Committee, with a remit covering all matters relevant to describing and providing access to collections of rare books and, where appropriate, manuscripts.  On 22 February 2005 the RBG Committee approved the setting up of the committee, to be known as the UK Bibliographic Standards Committee of the CILIP Rare Books Group; with the name change of the Group, the Committee name later became the UK Bibliographic Standards Committee of the CILIP Rare Books and Special Collections Group. Present membership is as follows:

• Dr Brian Hillyard, Rare Book Collections Manager, National Library of Scotland (Chair) (to 31 Dec. 2010)
• Dr Karen Attar, Rare Books Librarian, Senate House Library, University of London (Secretary) (to 31 Dec. 2010)
• Hugh Cahill, Senior Information Assistant (Special Collections), King’s College London (to 31 Dec. 2010)
• Alan Danskin, British Library & Chair of the CILIP Cataloguing and Indexing Group Committee (to 31 Dec. 2010)
• Carlo Dumontet, Special Collections Bibliographer, National Art Library, Victoria & Albert Museum (to 31 Dec. 2011)
• William Hale, Assistant Under-Librarian (Rare Books), Cambridge University Library (to 31 Dec. 2010)
• Owen McKnight, Assistant Librarian, Worcester College, Oxford (to 31 Dec. 2011)
• Simon May, British and Early Printed Collections, British Library (to 31 Dec. 2010)
• Julianne Simpson, Rare Books Librarian, Wellcome Library (to 31 Dec. 2010)
• Stewart Tiley, Assistant Librarian, Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (to 31 Dec. 2010)
• Sarah Wheale, OULS Early Printed Books Project, Bodleian Library, Oxford (to 31 Dec. 2010)

The BSC was set up to undertake the following tasks:

1. to act as a review panel for proposals for ISBD(A) revision;
2. to act as a review panel for proposals for DCRM(B) revision;
3. to provide input into matters concerning rare books for RDA;
4. to revise the RBG Guidelines for Cataloguing Rare Books prior to making them available on the RBG website;
5. to provide pages on the RBG website, informing librarians of what we are doing and providing useful information and links;
6. to co-ordinate British submissions for new thesauri terms, to be discussed by email and proposed to the US editor. It should particularly note discrepancies between British and American usage;
7. to inform the Book Industry Communications (BIC), Bibliographic Standards Group of desired changes relevant for rare books in MARC format;
8. to provide advice and training, e.g. via seminars and BSC pages on the RBG website.

to which subsequently was added a review of the standards for online catalouging of non-archival manuscripts. Tasks 1-4 having been completed, current emphasis is to provide advice and training.

The UK Bibliographic Standards Committee of the CILIP Rare Books and Special Collections Group is intended to serve British librarians and librarianship. It is about rare books; and it is about cataloguing. Please do make use of the Group: let us know if you need cataloguing training, and make the BSC a forum for your rare book cataloguing views and concerns.