Principles of Format Design

This paper is a summary of several working papers prepared for the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) Working Group on Content Designators. The first working paper, January 1973, discussed the obstacles confronting the Working Group, stated the scope of responsibility for the Working Group, and gave definitions of the terms, tags, indicator and data element identifiers, as well as a statement of the function of each. The first paper was submitted to the Working Group for comments and was subsequently modified (revised April 1973) to reflect those comments that were applicable to the scope of the Working Group and to the definition and function of content designators. The present paper makes the basic assumption that there will be a SUPERMARC and discusses principles of format design. This series of papers is being published in the interest of aerting the library community to intemational activities. All individual working papers are submitted to the MARBI interdivisional committee of ALA by the chairman of the IFLA Working Group for comments by that committee.