Catalogue records

Specification for a data carrier that supports cataloguing (external site) without the data having to be installed locally.

• Several data pools may be present.
• There is a file named POOL.INI holding information about the data pools.
• There are files named POOL.DBF and POOL.NTX holding information about the data pools.
• The files POOL.INI, POOL.DBF and POOL.NTX are in the root directory (external site) of the data carrier.
• The data pools may sit in various directories on the data carrier in Joliet format (external site).
• Book covers may be supplied along with the item data.

For each data pool:

• Every data pool holds a file with the item data in SBC format, normally with the extension *.SBC or *.MAB — see The SBC file.
• Every data pool has a matching file with the extension *.DBF for index searching during cataloguing.
• Every data pool has a matching file with the extension *.CDX for index searching during cataloguing.

Example structure:

pool.ini
pool.dbf
pool.cdx
datenfrbfrb.mab
datenfrbfrb.dbf
datenfrbfrb.cdx
datentestpc2.mab
datentestpc2.dbf
datentestpc2.cdx
covercover.dbf
covercover.fpt
covercover.cdx

No particular medium is prescribed: any medium with a readable file system will do, these days normally a USB flash drive (external site). In earlier years the data was supplied on CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW or DVD.