Electronic Consortium of Libraries: A Bibliographical Cooperation Scheme

Abstract

In 1982 a Brazilian joint venture of cooperative automated cataloging at national level started, which developed in the 1990s with the greater use of the Internet and changes of format and software to provide Internet access to online catalogues. In consequence, major changes were made from 1997 on to operate with new software entirely online, with full Internet access for remote users and an Intranet for cataloguing from 80 workstations. The launching, in 1998, of a website with one million records, including the current National Bibliography, linked to images and sounds, legal deposit records and ISBN registration, as well as full text classical Brazilian literature, has created an impact on users. In 1999 registers of copyright records were also made available on the web, and today encompass 200,000 items. An Electronic Consortium of Libraries was created in 1998 which caters to users and also deals with libraries individually through its outreach programme. The sophisticated system of copy cataloguing permits libraries which become members of the Consortium to download full bibliographical records and multimedia, free of charge, from the National Bibliography. The online cataloguing software has built-in automated Portuguese translation offering cataloguers at their workstation access to official translated terms of subject headings used by the Library of Congress. Several thematic sites have been developed to cater to cultural awareness, targeting social, economic and cultural aspects of the different history and life of all states in Brazil, showing the cultural diversity of the North and South of the country.