Maschinelles Austauschformat für Bibliotheken

MAB is the acronym for "Maschinelles Austauschformat für Bibliotheken" which can be translated as Automated Library Exchange Format. It is a metadata format enabling "libraries to exchange all data generated within the library context: bibliographic, authority and local data".

The current format version (MAB2) has been introduced in 1995; a corresponding XML structure (MABxml ) is available since 2003.

The record structure of MAB2 is defined by NISO standard Z39.2-1994. Each record starts with a fixed leader of 24 bytes. In the subsequent content, the element is defined by a 3-digit tag (e.g. 331 for the title) and an optional indicator (e.g. 100b for the first contributor). The tag is followed by the corresponding value.

Example
00889nM2.01000024 h 001 00012645125 002a19890315 003 20001120 004 20020110152442.0 030 azzzc||z|||17 037bger 050 a 051 m 100 Riedl, Rupert 331 Biologie der Erkenntnis 335 die stammesgeschichtlichen Grundlagen der Vernunft 359 von Rupert Riedl 403 2. Aufl. 410 Berlin [u.a.] 412 Parey 425 1980 433 230 S. : graph. Darst. 540aISBN 3-489-60734-1 900 00003313204 902 |Biologie 902 |Erkenntnistheorie 903 21 904a024¦008¦013¦004¦079 905 00007729502 907 |Evolutionäre Erkenntnistheorie 909a056¦017¦027 910 00001427539 912 |Humanbiologie 914a069¦079

Tools

 * MAB/MABxml conversion tools, Deutsche Nationalbibliothek