Conversion of Bibliographic Information to Machine Readable Form Using On-Line Computer Terminals

Abstract

A description of the first six months of a project to convert to machine readable form the entire shelf list of the Libraries of the State University of New York at Buffalo. IBM DATATEXT, the on-line computer service which was used for the conversion, provided an upper- and lower-case typewriter which transmitted data to disk storage of a digital computer. Output was a magnetic tape containing bibliographic information tagged in a modified MARC I format. Typists performed all tagging at the console. All information except diacriticals and non-Roman alphabets was converted. Direct costs for the first six months were $.55 per title.