RFC 1807 (rfc1807) - Page 2 of 15
A Format for Bibliographic Records
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
RFC 1807 A Format for Bibliographic Records June 1995 This format is a "tagged" format with self-explaining alphabetic tags. It should be possible to prepare and to read bibliographic records using any text editor, without any special programs. This RFC includes the CR-CATEGORY, a field useful for Computer Science publications. It is expected that similar fields will be added for other domains. This format, as described in RFC 1357, was implemented as part of the Dienst system and has been in use by the five ARPA-funded computer science institutions to exchange bibliographic records (Cornell, SU, UC, MIT, and CMU). Programs have been written to map between this RFC and structured USMARC (format developed at the Library of Congress) cataloging records, also from USMARC to the RFC. The focus of this ARPA-funded research has been into many aspects of digital libraries including searching and accessing techniques that do not necessarily use bibliographic records (for example, natural language processing, automatic and full-text indexing). However, the continued use of bibliographic records is expected to remain an important part of the library system environment of the future and its use is an important link between the physical world of scientific works and the on-line world of digital objects. The format described in this paper allows a link between these two worlds to be created. This format was developed with considerable help and involvement of Computer Science and Library personnel from several organizations, including Carnegie Mellon University, Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI), Cornell University, University of Southern California/Information Sciences Institute (ISI), Meridian (now called DynCorp), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, and the University of California. Key contributions were provided by Jerry Saltzer of MIT, and Larry Lannom of DynCorp. The initial draft was prepared by Danny Cohen and Larry Miller of ISI. The revision was done by Rebecca Lasher from Stanford with assistance from the CS-TR participants. This RFC does not place any limitations on the dissemination of the bibliographic records. If there are limitations on the dissemination of the publication, it should be protected by some means such as passwords. This RFC does not address this protection. The use of this format is encouraged. There are no limitations on its use. Lasher & Cohen Informational



