The International Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD) Review Group is announcing the release of the Update 2021 to the 2011 ISBD Consolidated Edition as a draft, awaiting an official publication early 2022.

The ISBD 2021 Update has been developed by the Content Update Task Force of the ISBD Review Group as an updating revision that takes into account requests by users and their cataloguing needs since the publication of the 2011 edition. Its development brings together the energies and expertise of members of the ISBD Review Group and external experts from specialized institutions and learned societies for special formats (i.e. manuscripts and cartographic materials), with the full membership in the Content Update Task Force of liaisons from the IFLA Rare Books and Special Collections Section (RBSCS).

The developments made in this Update extend the coverage of ISBD to a larger array of resources, optimize its ability for granular description, clarify and develop some of the elements, and bring more organization and refinements into the description of some types of resources.

Summary of the updates:

  • the content of the ISBD has been extended to encompass unpublished resources with focus on the manuscripts
  • it has integrated stipulations for the application of the ISBD to the description of component parts;
  • it has removed ambiguities and clarified stipulations for cartographic resources;
  • new elements were introduced in appropriate Areas and in the Glossary as required;
  • examples have been added to the new stipulations to support implementation by the users of the standard.

In the Update, the additions and modifications to the 2011 Consolidated Edition of the ISBD are in red print to facilitate their identification and maximize their usefulness to the users.

More information and details on the focus of the updates are found in the Introduction of the 2021 Update.

For questions, inquiries and feedback, please contact us at: elena.escolano@economia.gob.es and rehab.ouf@bibalex.org