Arabic Library Standards

Bibliotheca Alexandrina in the 27th Arab Federation for Libraries and Information (AFLI) Conference

The Arab Federation for Libraries and Information (AFLI) Conference, in its 27th round, will be held in Steigenberger Nile Palace Hotel, Luxor, Egypt, 14–16 November 2016, in cooperation with the Egyptian Library Association (ELA), and in collaboration with the Egyptian Ministry of Culture. The title of the conference this year is Information Literacy in the Arab Knowledge Society: The Challenges of the Present and the Future.

The AFLI Conference is highly attended by library and information science professionals, in addition to eminent participants from the Arab countries who present their experiences, papers, researches and initiatives in the various conference-related scopes.

The Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA), represented in the Arabic Library Standards, attends the conference, exhibiting the first full translation of MARC 21 Format for Bibliographic Data in Arabic, in the Conference Exhibition, Booth 1.

MARC 21 Format for Bibliographic Data in Arabic includes the latest updates—update 19 with huge selections from updates 20 and 21, adopting the original arrangement and typography of the English MARC 21. The translation is adapted to meet Arab cataloging rules, provided with examples emphasizing Arab practices. It also covers new cataloging standards, such as Resource Description and Access (RDA).

It is worth mentioning that MARC 21 Formats are standards by which bibliographic information is documented in a machine-readable form. It is considered one of the most efficient systems in data creation and sharing. Hence, the Arabic translation benefits Arab catalogers, providing them with an international standard in their mother tongue.

For further details about MARC 21 Format for Bibliographic Data in Arabic, please visit: http://www.bibalex.org/als/en/page/marc-overview.