Bibliographic data consists of information that varies from item to item.
E.g. An item may have many authors
An item may have subtitle / series title
An item may have many keywords
AACR2 (Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules rev. II) suggests 92 such attributes
in its chapter 1.

Hence information needs to be recorded using tags for every attribute, so that computer space is used only if the attribute is present. This is achieved in software’s like CDS-ISIS, MINISIS and SLIM. This can not be achieved by using XBASE data management systems like FOXPRO, Clipper. Some software try to achieve this by allowing multiple keywords as part of one field using delimiter (Comma?). In the result indexing is not possible with 2nd keyword onward. The software then does "Embedded search" i.e. searching each and every record in the database for the specified search string! (How does the end user know whether she should use regular search or embedded search?)

Bibliographic data consists of text which can be of variable length.
E.g. An item title can be 10 characters or 1000 characters
An item summary can be 50 words or 1000 words

Hence information needs to be recorded for every item using varying computer space. This is achieved in SLIM by maintaining length of the string. A software developed using FOXPRO can not achieve this. The result is you can not enter complete data. E.g. Corporate author “ Symbiosis Centre for Management and Human Resource development”. If you increase the field length then the data records which were small in size get padded with spaces.

The main objective of maintaining bibliographic data on the computer is efficient retrieval of information. SLIM captures every word that is entered in the database (can be configured as per the requirement of a library) and puts it in the index table along with its places of occurrence. The advantages of this technique are many.

Fast response as the search pattern is matched with the entries which are indexed and not sequential search through the complete database as some other software do under the heading "embedded search". Imagine your computer searching for string "management" in 50 records... 500 records... 5000 records! SLIM maintains same response time even for the collection of 1 lakh records with complex boolean searches.
Every word is captured even if it is misspelled. Say “menagement”. The wrongly spelled word will also appear when you browse through the list of words generated. And you can correct the data entry errors well in advance. After all, the success of your library system lies on the quality of the data entered.
No information is lost. Even if your librarian forgets to assign keywords to a book, the book is traceable by words that have appeared in its abstract, other title or chapter headings etc. and in one search. (you do not perform embedded search once in Title, then in keyword, then in summary..)  

Accession Number and Borrower (Member) Identification numbers to allow both alphabets and digits. This allows for segregating different series as well as does not hinder the use of bar codes.
For Multiple copies only one bibliographic record should be maintained and the subsequent copies attached to the same. This saves disk space. If a record needs to be edited later then it can be done at one place and not for every copy.
Provision for See / See also reference cards.
Provision for item which is a part of another item E.g. Collection of essays. Every essay in the collection can be catalogued individually without assigning an accession number to it.
Provision for following reference lists at the time of data entry for data validation and consistency.

The above lists are also available for browsing for the reader at the time of searching On-Line. For e.g. variations in the author name like “Saksena” or “Saxsena” , “Joneja” or “Juneja” become apparent since the names are available on the screen.
Software should allow entering title / authors in upper or lower case.
Provision for added entries on Title, author names etc.
E.g. - Book “Gitai” by Shri Vinoba Bhave. In SLIM added access point on title can be associated for its uniform title “Bhagwat Gita” . (Refer chapter 21 of AACR2 Rev. II)
In circulation- multiple categories of books e.g. books for overnight borrowings

• Adherence to Windows Standards with menu bar, taskbar, window resizing , window moving, multi-tasking using simultaneous operations in multiple windows.
• Point and Click. Reduces users learning requirements
• Drag & Drop, Cut & Paste. Reduces data entry effort and thereby increases uniformity and accuracy of the data.
• Wizard mode for beginners e.g. wizard mode to enter item information, to formulate search query. Users don’t have to remember steps, neither can they miss out any steps.
• Extensive On Line Help
• Tool Tips
• Use of Rich Text Format (.rtf) for reporting. (users can specify font, color, size of the text)
• Access data in multiple media, computer files holding pictures, sound, films, drawings, bitmaps and render them.
• Interface with standard windows applications like
  Word Pad
  Microsoft Word
  Mail exchanger
  Object Packagers
• Ease of operations with standard User Interfaces like Tree Views, List Views, Combo boxes, Tabbed Dialogue
• Use of Windows standard dialogues for operations like Saving, Opening, Searching, etc.
• The on screen keyboard layout can be used to make data entry in various languages