Archival and Bibliographic Information Networks

Abstract

Library networking was predicated on the achievement of unifying standards for description and a common basis for communication. MARC formers. The inadvertent lack of early inter-computer protocols also fostered decentralized organizational development and the commercial exchange of data. Pre-1976 visions of a national library system have been modified to the realities of interactive networks. Archives were largely uninvolved in such developments in the 1970s, until 1977 when the Society of American Archivist's National Information Systems Task Force was formed. NISTF prepared the way for archives and library interaction and the development of the MARC Archives and Manuscript Control format which preserves archival control distinctions from bibliographic conventions but uses authority records effectively. Further cooperation is now possible.