International Standard Bibliographic Description - Structure of An ISBD Record

Structure of An ISBD Record

The ISBD prescribes eight areas of description. Each area, except area 7, is composed of multiple elements with structured classifications. Elements and areas that do not apply to a particular resource are omitted from the description. Standardized punctuation (colons, semicolons, slashes, dashes, commas, and periods) is used to identify and separate the elements and areas. The order of elements and standardized punctuation make it easier to interpret bibliographic records when one does not understand the language of the description.

• 1: title and statement of responsibility area, with the contents of
  • 1.1 Title proper
  • 1.2 General material designation. GMDs are generic terms describing the medium of the item.
  • 1.3 Parallel title
  • 1.4 Other title information
  • 1.5 Statements of responsibility (authorship, editorship, etc.)
• 2: edition area
• 3: material or type of resource specific area (for example, the scale of a map or the numbering of a periodical)
• 4: publication, production, distribution, etc., area
• 5: physical description area (for example: number of pages in a book or number of CDs issued as a unit)
• 6: series area
• 7: notes area
• 8: resource identifier (e.g. ISBN, ISSN) and terms of availability area

ISBD(A) is governing the antiquarian bibliographic publications, which could apply to the ones in archeology, museum, antique auction or canonical texts etc.