Online transfer of records: technical characteristics and prerequisites

Characteristics

• Although the service is free of charge, users must register and set up a user account.
• Records are downloaded in ISO 2709 format. ISO 2709 is an international standard that defines a high-level structure for exchanging a variety of record types.
• Available bibliographic formats: INTERMARC or UNIMARC.
• Character encoding: ISO 5426 (a Latin character set with or without diacritics) or UTF-8 UNICODE (a character set for all writing systems).
• The basket may contain up to 500 bibliographic and authority records.

Technical prerequisites

To download bibliographic and authority records from the catalogue général de la BnF by creating a basket and transferring files to BnF’s FTP server, you must be equipped with the following:

• An Internet (http) connection to a web browser (Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer);
• An FTP server (communications protocol used for exchanging files between computing systems) in order to download records from the BnF’s FTP server;
• A software to import records in ISO 2709 format.