This document discusses bibliographic resources and records. It defines a bibliographic item as any document, book, or record of human communication, and a bibliographic record as a collection of data elements that represent a bibliographic item. Bibliographic records contain elements needed to identify and retrieve an item in a formalized bibliographic format. The earliest known bibliographic records date back to 2000 BC in Sumeria, while modern formats originate from traditional paper-based libraries and conform to MARC standards. A bibliographic record systematically organizes all data required to identify an item and acts as a surrogate for that item.