Resource Description and Access (RDA) is a standard for descriptive cataloguing which provides guidelines for the formatting of bibliographic data. RDA Essentials is designed as a supporting handbook for creating RDA catalogue records and is intended as a quick reference source for the RDA element set. Each element is described using the RDA definition, scope note, core element information and basic instructions.
The guide begins by introducing RDA and its fundamental concepts and vocabulary. The book is then divided into four sections – elements, guidelines, constructing access points and other additional instructions. The format is easy to follow, although readers will need to copy links in this printed work into their browsers in order to access related material listed in this book. The format is easy to follow and the examples provided are useful in assisting cataloguers to make decisions in creating RDA records.
What the guide does not provide are coding instructions such as MARC or other encoding standards, and it does not cover some categories such as exceptions for early printed works and full access points for some types of material such as musical works, legal works and religious works. Readers requiring more specialised content would need to look elsewhere. There is a comprehensive index which is useful in finding where to look within this guide, and the useful contents page provides a structured way of finding content within the book’s 32 chapters.
The author, Thomas Brenndorfer, has a cataloguing background and has been giving presentations introducing FBBR and RDA concepts to cataloguers in Canada for a number of years. His style is easy to understand although the work does assume some prior cataloguing knowledge and ability.
This book is a useful day-to-day reference for cataloguers and students, especially those in smaller libraries that do not need the full RDA or for those requiring a summary of RDA to use. It is a useful tool as a student textbook, and would be even more useful to RDA users as an online resource with an ability to link directly to related information and be kept up-to-date in this evolving area.
Parliament of Australia Library
© 2016 Catherine Gilbert
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00049670.2016.1241205