Attended by representatives from different types of libraries and centered around a report entitled "A Proposed Format for a Standardized Machine-Readable Catalog Record," a conference was held to aid in the identification of a common core of catalog data which would serve libraries of all types as well as the data which is needed to serve special requirements. Conference papers and discussions covered: (1) a brief review of the LC automation program, with emphasis on activities relating to machine-readable copy; (2) the proposed machine-readable catalog standard, including design philosophy, unresolved problems, a summary of comments received, and discussion by conference participants, (3) observations and comments from the Association of Research Libraries Automation Committee; (4) questions and comments from university, public and special library viewpoints; and (5) discussion by topics, with emphasis on fields for language, date of publication, city and country of publication, bibliographic form, publisher, and intellectual level. (JB)