National Library News July/August 1999 Vol. 31, nos. 7-8

New release
Canadiana CD-ROM Grows in 1999

A new edition of Canadiana: The National Bibliography on CD-ROM will be released in the summer of 1999. Canadiana CD-ROM 1998 was issued in June 1998. The first release covered more than 1.25 million records, including bibliographic records for Canadiana that appeared in the Library’s national bibliography from 1973 to the end of 1997, some 6500 records for maps, atlases and globes from the Carto-Canadiana file of the National Archives, and name authority records created by the National Library and the National Archives. The June 1999 issue, the first of two semi-annual issues planned for 1999, includes the 1.25 million records that were in the 1998 edition plus more than 450 000 bibliographic and name authority records for Canadiana from AMICUS.

The added records include

• 80 000 bibliographic and name authority records from the current national bibliography that were added or modified by the National Library during 1998, as well as records for Carto-Canadiana added or modified by the National Archives;
• more than 200 000 bibliographic records for items listed in the national bibliography prior to the advent of automation in the Library in 1973, most of them entered during major retrospective shelflist conversions in the 1990s;
• 43 000 bibliographic records for other Canadiana catalogued by the National Library to 1998 but not listed in the national bibliography because the items pre-dated 1950, the cut-off date for the current national bibliography;
• 80 000 bibliographic records for pre-1901 Canadiana from the National Library’s Retrospective National Bibliography;
• 77 000 bibliographic records for Early Canadiana, microform editions of pre-1920 Canadiana filmed and published up to the end of 1998 by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions (CIHM).

All of the bibliographic and authority records in the new issue, including the records that also appeared in the first release, are in the new harmonized MARC 21 format jointly developed by the Library of Congress and the National Library of Canada. The MARC Help text for bibliographic records is based on the MARC 21 format.

Canadiana CD-ROM 1999 has been redesigned so that each issue now comprises two CD-ROM discs. This is necessary because the records being added in 1999, when combined with the records of the previous issue, will exceed the capacity of a single disc. Future releases are expected to further expand the storage requirements.

In Canadiana CD-ROM 1999 all authority records and the text of the MARC bibliographic format appear on both discs. The bibliographic records are distributed as follows:

• All Canadian official publications (federal, provincial, other)
• All serials
• All music and sound recordings
• NLC pre-1901 Retrospective National Bibiliography
• All Early Canadiana records from CIHM
• All Carto-Canadiana
• Other Canadiana pre-dating 1970

• Other Canadiana published after 1969 (excluding the items on Disc 1)

Canadiana CD-ROM 1999 offers expanded coverage of published Canadiana, now including all of the bibliographic records created by the National Library for the current and retrospective national bibliographies since their inception, and records for other Canadiana catalogued for its collections since the 1950s. Libraries and individual researchers will find in the new Canadiana CD-ROM an enriched bibliographic source for identifying current and retrospective Canadiana, strengthened by the contributions of records from the National Archives and CIHM. The speedy and flexible access made possible by CD-ROM technology supports both traditional searching by known attributes such as author, title and subject, and custom searching by the wide range of other data elements found in the MARC 21 records.

Planning for future releases of the product includes possible further expansion in coverage by adding other bibliographic records for Canadiana from the AMICUS database. The first issue of Canadiana CD-ROM 1999 will appear in the summer of 1999. The second issue for 1999, which will add records created during 1999, is expected to be produced early in 2000.

For a demonstration of Canadiana: The National Bibliography on CD-ROM, visit the NLC Web site at <www.nlc-bnc.ca/canadiana> or, to receive a demo diskette, contact

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Ordering information

Canadiana: The National Bibliography on CD-ROM
SN2-2/1999-1-MRC
Cost: $129.95 ($139.05 with 7% GST)

Order from

Canadian Government Publishing—PWGSC
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0S9
Telephone: (819) 956-4800 or 1-800-635-7943
Fax: (819) 994-1498 or 1-800-565-7757
Web site: <www.publications.pwgsc.gc.ca>