The new cataloguing code Resource Description and Access (RDA) is the successor to the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules. In February 2014, the National Library of Australia announced that its policy statements on RDA were available in the RDA Toolkit, so a guide on the implementation of RDA, including a chapter on using the RDA Toolkit, seems particularly timely.
In the preface to RDA: Strategies for Implementation, Magda El-Sherbini mentions that the information within the book is based on RDA as of January 2012, and she has produced an introduction to RDA “addressed to those who have heard of RDA but are not sure what to think of it” (ix). Essentially this book is for cataloguers to understand the new guidelines and how to use it with MARC. It is a good introduction to the principles of RDA.
As well as her practical work as the Head of the Ohio State University Libraries' Cataloging Department El-Sherbini also served as a member of the American Library Association RDA Advisory Board, which included testing of RDA online. Probably as a result of her extensive background in RDA, the guide is very clear and easy to understand, though with the passage of time and updates to RDA some of the material is now out-of-date. For example, the publication statement MARC field is no longer the 260 field, but is now the 264 field (which includes the core element of the copyright date), and multiple 264 fields can be used. So aspects of the examples of RDA records for the publication statement on pages 150–156 are no longer current.
The conceptual background of RDA, its interrelation with MARC, the flexibility offered to cataloguers in decision-making in cataloguing items, and the outline of how FRAD (Functional Requirements for Authority Data) and FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Data) affect RDA, are well presented.
The book begins with the journey of the second edition of Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules (AACR2) to RDA, highlighting history, the need for a new cataloguing code, principles, and how RDA and AACR2 differ. Further chapters cover manifestations, identifying works, identifying expressions, and identifying items. These form the basis of RDA, and are also RDA terminology.
El-Sherbini provides numerous examples of tags and bibliographic records. An example is the variations in the 336, 337, and 338 tags, which replace the general material description (GMD) in the title statement. Examples of both bibliographic and authority RDA records are provided.
RDA: Strategies for Implementation is worthwhile as background reading for cataloguers and cataloguing departments moving into the adoption of RDA, with the caveat that RDA has changed since January 2012 – which is precisely why the RDA Toolkit is primarily an online resource. However, the account of the concepts of RDA and how it differs from AACR2 and what a Work, Expression, Manifestation and Item are, is good, sound information.
Those who are unfamiliar with cataloguing and its myriad acronyms may be better advised to seek a more general introduction to RDA. But the author wrote the guide for the practitioner, or would-be practitioner, those who have heard of RDA, but may not know much about it. The author succeeds in conveying RDA concepts to cataloguers, but those looking for current RDA MARC sample records may find Maxwell's Handbook for RDA: Explaining and Illustrating RDA: Resource Description and Access Using MARC21 more useful.