Die Zeitschriftendatenbank the German Union Catalogue of Serials: the ZDB.

The German Union Catalogue of Serials, the ZeitschriftenDatenBank in short ZDB, looks back on a history of more than thirty years, a history which has been a rather successful one. During these thirty years ZDB has developed from an automation project supported by only a few libraries to a national network with an extensive and reliable database, now firmly established in Germany. According to the subject of today's Serial Section Session I will start with some explanations about the ZDB itself, its technical and organizational structure and the included materials. Further, I will give some figures and explain how our bibliographic control works. A matter of interest will also be the prospective cooperation with international partners and the question whether ZDB is going to harmonize their rules with international ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]