The Role and Function of National Bibliographies for Research

摘要

In this special issue, the subject of national bibliographies is presented from a user perspective, limited to the role and function of national bibliographies for research. Prior to being guest editors for this special issue, we wrote an article where we examined if the metadata quality of the Swedish National Bibliography could be measured through mapping the level of user awareness regarding the characteristics of the data.1 We did not hesitate a minute when we were invited to act as guest editors for this special issue of Cataloging & Classification Quarterly. More than ten years ago, Ingrid Parent described the characteristics of a national bibliography in the following way: "Among the characteristics of a national bibliography are that it provides a current, timely, comprehensive and authoritative list of all tides published in a country, it provides a record of their existence, and it identifies them unambiguously."2 Only a few years earlier the theories of the Semantic Web and linked data had been formulated.