ABSTRACT
In 1991 the results of a survey into rare book cataloguing were published. Some new fields were introduced into the UKMARC format and in 1997 the Rare Books Group of the Library Association published guidelines for cataloguing rare books. The British Library was the largest supplier of records, with 64 libraries of those surveyed, and followed by BLCMP with 52. The British Library was reluctantly forced to concede that the other copyright deposit libraries could contribute to its cataloguing and help meet its targets. The aim was to share the cataloguing of copyright deposit material between the British Library and the other deposit libraries on 70:30 bases. Academic libraries far out passed public in their provision of online public access catalogues (OPAC) for users. A survey of the former in 1992 found that 82 out of 104 respondents had an OPAC of some kind; 75 of these were using commercial systems, and 7 in-house software.
