Achieving widespread agreement on subject organization is a complex task, and a challenge greater than that of creating a standard bibliographic description for international exchange—the goal of Universal Bibliographic Control (UBC). This article traces the history of the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC), its relationship with other schemes, and opportunities for further collaboration.

Universal Bibliographic Control and the Quest for a Universally Acceptable Subject Arrangement

Donald Davinson has culled together a number of definitions of the term \"Bibliographic Control\" which together bring out the essence of the concept. Briefly it means control over a given set of literature through its systematic listing in bibliographies. We define literature here to mean the records of human knowledge or human communication in whatever form presented; and a given set of literature could be literature of a subject or group of subjects, or of a given country or given period. In this paper, we shall be concerned with the literature of Nigeria. Bibliography is used here in its widest sense and includes library catalogues,indexes and abstracts. Our task in this paper is to consider the problems of bibliographic control äs defined above in so far äs they relate to Nigeria and to highlight the efforts that have been made to overcome them. We shall tackle this assignment under two broad headings, namely:

Problems of Bibliographie Control in Nigeria

In the last thirty years IFLA has been developing the programme of Universal Bibliographic Control, whose feasibility depends on current national bibliographies. Thirty years ago, when the UBC programme was initiated, it was not yet clear whether current national bibliographies were the best possible source of bibliographic records. Recommendations adopted at the International Congress on National Bibliographies held in Paris in 1977 encouraged the development of national bibliographies and helped in their standardisation. The author emphasises that new decisions must be taken by the editors of contemporary national bibliograhies regarding the definition of national collection, deposit legislation, coverage, presentation and timeliness of national bibliographies. Recommendations of the International Conference on National Bibliographic Services held in Copenhagen in 1998 are presented and discussed.

Nacionalna tekuca bibliografija u službi Univerzalne bibliografske kontrole

The bibliographical control of world book production is a major problem which is seldom satisfactorily solved with regard to scope, content and speed. A further and still more complex task which has so far been inadequately carried out is that of utilizing the available data on book production for library purposes.It can be seen as one of IFLA's tasks to treat international bibliographical . control as a single process extending from the printing of the books to their cataloguing in libraries. This has not as yet occurred. Many attempts have been made to rationalize the flow of bibliographical data in particular fields but none of these efforts has represented more than a partial approach to the problem. They should now be combined in order that their effect on one another may be determined and the elements still lacking for a useful exchange of data formulated in a single over-all concept.The guiding principle for UBG should be as follows: the information on a book should be produced as completely and correctly as possible at the earliest possible date. In the interests of speed, accuracy and simplicity this should be done in the country of origin by the national bibliographies. The data should be made available in machine-readable form. (1) This guiding principle should be contrasted to the other possibility, that of cataloguing books of different national origin in one place and offering this information in machine-readable form. The latter method is certainly of great ; value for an individual country, but cannot be regarded as the best procedure for world-wide exchange of bibliographical data, as it would mean a delay for a third country wishing to obtain the data; moreover this method must always involve the use of certain criteria for selection.If UBC is regarded as the systematic handling of bibliographical data from the time a book is printed anywhere in the world until its cataloguing by libraries in many places, the task of making this systematic flow of information rational, efficient and flexible will entail solving a series of questions and problems, putting in hand a number of research, co-operation and standardization projects and completing existing projects.Three important groups of problems must be considered. First of all there are questions relating to the sources of bibliographical data. These are linked to questions of standardization, which is essential for any exchange of information. Finally, certain problems of organization must be taken into account in order to ensure a speedy flow of data.The following points are of different degrees of importance. In some instances a study will be necessary, in others lengthy negotiations between various interested parties will be called for. In certain areas it can only be a matter of advising or aiding the responsible authorities. This will become self-evident from the individual points. The steps to be taken in the framework of UBC need not follow the sequence of the points listed below.

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Franz Georg Kaltwasser

Papers

Universal Bibliographical Control (UBC).