Please find below an overview of standards for creating surrogates and some recommendations for cataloging them.

This document is not intended to offer an exhaustive description of quality standards. Instead it aims at listing the essential criteria that have to be kept in mind, when reformatting information from print or manuscript to other media for preservation. You will also find useful links and selected titles for further reading in it.

Standards for surrogates

This document is an outline of the essential contents of bibliographic records for preservation surrogates. It is not a set of rules but rather a general summary of what any kind of national or international cataloging rules should accommodate. Followed by an overview of important fields in UNIMARC it also gives examples of records in this international exchange format.

Cataloging of preservation surrogates

A set of codes has been agreed internationally to record basic features of surrogates 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

In a joint effort with OCLC and under the patronage of LIBER we are working to build a virtual Global Digital Registry. Its aim is to achieve full coverage of every work that has been digitized and will be preserved in digital form.

To collect all information relevant, EROMM and OCLC are working with their member libraries and ask them to make available bibliographic records for digital masters. Such records shall contain elements, that are necessary to identify the original work and to give the essential features of the master. In a conference 4/5 May 2006 in Washington D.C. that was hosted by the Digital Library Federation a list of eight recommended elements was agreed, which are described in the following document.

Recommended elements in the bibliographic record of a digital surrogate

This German document in is an addition and specification of the Recommended elements in the bibliographic record of a digital surrogate. It describes the minimum requirements for records of layout accurate digital master from the perspective of EROMM.

Empfehlungen zur Erfassung von layoutgetreuen Digitalisaten (digitale Master)

Almost all of the recommended elements agreed for digital masters are also necessary for records of microform masters. The recommended elements for a detailed description are outlined in the following document:

Recommended elements in the bibliographic record of a microform surrogate