On this page EROMM gives an outline of the essential contents of bibliographic records for preservation surrogates. This is not a set of rules but rather a general summary of what any kind of national or international cataloguing rules should accomodate.

A general consensus about how preservation surrogates shall be described in cataloguing has been reached in the last decade of the twentieth century. International bibliographic formats for electronic cataloguing such as UNIMARC, INTERMARC and MARC21 but also most of the bibliographic formats used for modern cataloguing software can accomodate the elements, which are essential for a record of a preservation surrogate. In spite of this some lack of awareness of the core elements that must be present in a record may result in a loss of important information. Full information is needed if a decision must be taken to repeat digitisation or microfilming of an item or, more positively, to refrain from duplicating the work done elsewhere and to select other items instead.

It is an easy start where you can create a duplicate of the record describing the original item. The bibliographic identity of the original (incl. edition and year of publication) is essential information obviously. But also the physical item, which will be used for reformatting, is of importance. The book held by a library may differ in more than one respect from the same issue of another library even if the bibliographic description does not point to these differences. This is why the holdings information (incl. location and call number, perhaps its state of preservation) shall remain with the new record. If the original item is discarded after reformatting, this should be said.

There are different types of surrogates but as preservation surrogate we are focussing on the master, or more precisely on the first generation preservation master. This is the surrogate produced directly from the original with no intermediate. It must contain the image of the printed or manuscript original. Only the true image allows the surrogate to be used as unequivocal reference in research and can replace the original edition on paper for most users.

With microforms we are used to refer to

• the preservation master as first generation,
• the printing master as second generation,
• and the user or service copy as third generation.

EROMM will accept records for (first generation) preservation microform masters. Records for printing masters can be accepted only where information on the preservation master is not available.

Similarly with digital forms we can regard

• the files created from the original in scanning as first generation; such files will be archived and refreshed (see below) periodically.
• Any subsequent files created as derivates from the first set of archival files may be of rather different format, which is configured to meet different user demands (web access, local high quality access, printing, etc.). To call these derivates ‘second generation’ may be misleading.

To bridge the waves of continuous change in hardware and software it will be necessary from time to time to migrate the achival files to new formats; this process is often termed refreshing. This will include using new or modified file formats, which will be more than just a clone of the first archival files.
These migrated archival files can rightly be termed second generation master files. Lossless migration will always be our aim but some change will inevitably occur.

EROMM will accept records for first generation digital masters. Records for second and subsequent generation masters are accepted when these are migrated archival files created to take account of software and hardware development.

Read more about Accepted microform surrogates
Accepted digital surrogates

In some cases libraries or archives will be responsible for creating and publishing surrogates, in others commercial publishers will have responsibility or share this with the institution holding the original. To know about Responsibility for an item may be important when trying to clarify questions about availiability and copyright.

The Producer of a surrogate may be taken as an indication of quality by those experienced in the field. If a record does not specify, who has done the technical job of producing the surrogate, it is understood that production has been done by the organisation named for responsibility.

With technological development moving as fast as ever the Year of production again is an indication of what technology may have been used when creating the surrogate.

The archival surrogate obviously is of the best quality in comparison with all subsequent copies made from it. It is stored in an environment, which will help to ensure that the surrogate will last as long as possible.

It is essential to record information about where the surrogate is archived and under which call number the microform or data carrier can be found.
Because of the predominant focus on access with digital surrogates this information is often neglected. At present most producers or those responsible for creating the digital master are used to keep the archival version on optical discs or on magnetic tape. The staff involved knows where they are kept. But after a decade or more this knowledge might not be easy to retrieve and the local files or registries, where such information can be found, might not be up-to-date. This is why call number and location should be on the record when cataloguing.

Read more about Storage of microform surrogates
Storage of digital surrogates

Technical features (physical attributes) of the surrogate can be recorded in a note (Reproduction Note according to MARC21 #533 and UNIMARC #325, #455/#456). This will be done in the cataloguers language and according to present day terminology.

Adding to this a set of codes has been agreed internationally to record such features in a way that will be independent of language and will retain its meaning over time (MARC21 #007h and #007c and UNIMARC #130 and #135). These codes allow to record the most essential general features.

The codes used for MARC21, UNIMARC and other bibliographic formats can easily be selected on this site.
Select codes for the physical features of the microform surrogate
Select codes for the physical features of the digital surrogate

Preservation of works, which were published and printed, drawn or written on paper originally, in surrogate only makes sense, if the surrogate is accessible to users.

Records in the EROMM database derived from all European and from many sources in the Americas carry information about where copies can be obtained. Requesting of copies may be done directly from the full display of a record.

European libraries take care to keep the e-mail address and URL of their reproduction services up-to-date:
See and amend your contact details

In most cases digital surrogates are accessible through the web, either free of charge or by subscription. Web access shall rely on persistent identifiers. The record in EROMM contains this link.

Where no web access is offered but copies are made available on CD-ROM or other, requesting shall be done from the EROMM record (see 3.1).