Much cataloguing in the last year - with different procedures

Compiling the German National Bibliography is one of the central statutory tasks of the DNB. Physical media are usually catalogued intellectually. In 2024, this was done for around 138,000 media works. In addition to the formal recording of data such as works, author and year of publication, the content is catalogued using subject headings and/or notations from the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC). In the DDC, the works are divided into different thematic categories (“classes”) and thus better support subject-related searches. Last year, around 92,000 publications were enriched with subject headings or DDC notations.

Automated processes for digital objects

Digital objects do not usually have to be catalogued manually in the DNB. The publishers and authors who provide them usually supply the formal data as well. In the catalogue, this data is then enriched with subject cataloguing data such as subject headings, DDC subject categories or DDC notations using automated processes. In 2024, around 1.3 million records were added automatically in this way.

New software for cataloguing

On July 8, 2024, our ILTIS cataloging system received a software update: OCLC's Central Bibliographic System software (CBS) version 9.0.4. The new version of the CBS is more effective. Moreover, the DNB's German Union Catalogue of Serials (ZDB) can now record up to 999 records per location. Previously, a maximum of 99 copy records - with information on the signature, location and access authorizations - were possible.

Preparations for the changeover took a year. During this time, the new software was extensively tested and bugs were fixed. A large part of the change consisted of migrating the data from the Sybase database management system to the open source system PostGreSQL. In addition, a new, browser-based CBS job management system was introduced for database selection.

German Union Catalogue of Serials: Daily delivery of holdings data possible

Since 2024, the holdings data of the German Union Catalogue of Serials (ZDB) can be provided via an OAI interface. The responsible development team at the German National Library has expanded the online import procedure. The procedure, which could previously only be used for the joint data service of the Electronic Journals Library (EZB) and ZDB, is now open to all ZDB suppliers. Those who deliver online will have their data updated daily instead of just weekly. Details of the new procedure are documented on the German Union Catalogue of Serial website.

The extended procedure was tested with the Austrian Library Network 2024.

More imports into the German Union Catalogue of Serials (ZDB)

Until now, the maximum quantity limit for the provision of ZDB data was 200,000 data records per week. In view of the increasing number of newly created and updated holdings data on a daily basis, this had reached a large backlog, especially in the two cooperative systems EZB and ZDB, and led to considerable delays in the supply of data recipients. It was therefore agreed with the library networks that the weekly volume limit could be successively increased to a maximum of one million. As a result, significantly more data could already be imported in 2024 than in the previous year.

In order to further advance the identification of persons and the linking with GND data, the German National Library used the Culturegraph holdings to cluster works.. These bundle different manifestations and editions of the same work. So if people with the same name appear in a cluster, it can be assumed that it is the same person. GND links that are listed in one data record of the cluster can thus also be adopted for the other data records. This happens automatically - a total of 2.7 million times so far. On average, 687 new links are created every day!

Video tutorials for subject cataloguing

The works are assigned with subject headings from a standardized vocabulary that describe the content and facilitate the literature search. This is done according to clear rules that apply to the entire DACH region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland).

In 2024, the DNB created a series of nine video tutorials to introduce the German rules for cataloguing by subject headings (RWSK). They can be accessed via the AV-Portal of the Library for Science and Technology in Hanover, a platform for scientific videos. It is the first complete, modular video training course on the subject to be made publicly available. The tutorials are transcribed according to international standards and are provided with a Creative Commons license. They are archived long-term with a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) and are therefore permanently available