The UKMARC Manual

The British Library adopted MARC 21 as its cataloguing format in June 2004. Since that date, these pages have not been maintained. Information on our current practices can be found on our Bibliographic Standards pages.

Development of the UKMARC format

In 1969 the British National Bibliography introduced a MARC tape service for current British books, in effect a machine-readable version of the weekly printed BNB. Subscribers to this service included libraries, booksellers and co-operative agencies such as the Birmingham Libraries Co-operative Mechanisation Project (BLCMP), which were developing systems for the distribution of MARC records to their members. At this time UKMARC primarily reflected the requirements of BNB but was gradually being developed to cater for use by the wider information community. By 1975 when the first edition of the UK MARC Manual was published, UKMARC had become a national communications format and its use in the production of records for BNB represented just one particular application of the format.

Since the early 1970s an extended family of more than twenty national MARC formats has grown up. Attempts were made to preserve compatibility between national formats, but differing national requirements have made complete compatibility impossible and differences in data content mean that editing is required before records can be exchanged. The solution to the problem of incompatibility has been to create an international MARC format, UNIMARC, which facilitates the exchange of records created in any MARC format (UNIMARC manual: bibliographic format. 2nd ed. Munchen, London: K. G. Saur, 1994).

Progress on standardisation continues to the present day, concerning in particular the harmonisation of UKMARC with MARC21. Full details can be found on our Moving to MARC 21 pages.

For further information please contact:

The British Library
Bibliographic Development
Boston Spa, Wetherby
West Yorkshire
LS23 7BQ
United Kingdom

Tel: + 44 (0) 1937 546548
Fax: + 44 (0) 1937 546586
Email: bd-info@bl.uk