RDA: End of the World Postponed?

Abstract

The author discusses issues and controversy concerning the new cataloging code Resource Description and Access (RDA) and the results of a test of RDA conducted by the Library of Congress, the National Library of Medicine, and the National Agricultural Library.

Keywords:

• Resource Description and Access
• cataloging rules
• metadata

Notes

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. These documents, along with the full report of the committee and other documentation on the U.S. RDA Test, are freely available on the LC website at http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/rda/

2. Complete information on availability of RDA in both online (the primary format) and print versions, as well as background information, news, blogs, and so on, can be found at www.rdatoolkit.org

3. Detailed primary sources on the development of RDA (both historic and ongoing) are freely available on the JSC website at http://www.rda-jsc.org/working2.html

4. Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (München: K.G. Saur, 1998). (Original text and an amended and correction version are both freely available online in PDF and HTML formats at http://www.ifla.org/en/publications/functional-requirements-for-bibliographic-records)

5. An excellent first stop for information on FRBR is FRBR Bibliography, which has ongoing updates and is freely available online at http://archive.ifla.org/VII/s13/wgfrbr/bibliography.htm

6. The website for the Library Linked Data Incubator Group is at http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/lld/; the website for the Linked Library Data Interest Group is at http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/lita/involve/igs/linked/lit-iglld.cfm

7. The website for the RDA Vocabularies is at http://rdvocab.info/

8. Ben R. Tucker, “AACR2: Implementation and Interpretation of 1988 Revision,” in Origins, Content, and Future of AACR2 Revised, ed. Richard P. Smiraglia (Chicago: American Library Association, 1992), 39.