The New Zealand national bibliography: production, progress and prospects from its beginning to the year 1993

Abstract

This study examines the different national bibliographic works which together provide bibliographic control of publications in New Zealand. It provides an overall picture of these works from their origins through to the present time, looking at what they are, how they developed, what they contain, what they are used for, and how they compare with national bibliographic works from other countries. Four main works are identified and examined, being the retrospective New Zealand National Bibliography To the Year 1960, Copyright Publications, the Current National Bibliography, and the New Zealand National Bibliography (NZNB). These four works are examined in depth, concentrating on a number of features such as scope, cataloguing rules, arrangement of entries, fullness of details, and access to entries. The New Zealand Bibliographic Network (NZBN) is also examined, as it provides some of these same bibliographic entries in an online environment. The levels and types of use made of the currently produced NZNB are measured by a survey of 66 libraries in New Zealand. Results show that the majority of libraries use the NZNB, with slightly more use made of the bibliographic records on the NZBN computer network than the NZNB in microfiche form. The main uses of the NZNB are selection, bibliographic reference and cataloguing. A broad comparison of the national bibliographic works in New Zealand with those from other countries shows that New Zealand's national bibliographic works compare favourably with others, and comply with the international standards of the IFLA/Unesco Guidelines for National Bibliographic Agencies and the National Bibliography. Just as the contents of the national bibliography over the past several decades stand as a record of national memory in New Zealand, showing which subjects, people and philosophies were in vogue at any given time, so also do the production, scope, fullness and accessibility of entries in the national bibliography stand as a record of the quality of librarianship in New Zealand.