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RESOURCE DESCRIPTION AND ACCESS (RDA) :

AN INTRODUCTION TO CATALOGUING IN THE 21ST CENTURY

Presented by:Hamidah bt. HJ. A. Rahman

Senior LecturerFaculty of Information Management

UiTM Puncak Perdana Campus40150 Shah Alam

SELANGOR DARUL EHSAN

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What is RDA?• Resource Description and Access• A content standard for:–Describing resources– Enabling access to resource descriptions

• Based on AACR2 but not AACR3• Defines what goes into a catalogue record but

not how it is encoded or displayed

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Some Related Standards• FRBR = a entity-relational model of the data

required to find, identify, select and obtain resources

• ISBD = rules that organise the display of a bibliographic description of an item in a catalogue

• MARC = communication and exchange format providing a structure for encoding the content of bibliographic and authority data

• Dublin Core = metadata schema

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FRBR• Functional Requirements of Bibliographic Records• IFLA study; report published 1998

• Entity-relationship model that defines:– Tasks: find, identify, select, obtain– Resource relationships:

work, expression, manifestation, item– Entities: people, corporate bodies– Entities: concepts, objects, events, places

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ISBDs

• International Standard Bibliographic Descriptions• Developed 1969 onwards by IFLA• Defined seven areas of description and their order– Title– Statement of Responsibility– Edition– Resource specific information– Publication details– Physical description– Series information– Notes and standard identifiers

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AACR

• Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules– A content standard for bibliographic description

and access– Bibliographic – not just books– Built on other, earlier sets of rules

• Key principles– One principle entry per resource– Catalogue from item in hand– Chief source of information

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AACR / RDA timeline• 1967 UK and US editions• 1978 Second unified edition - consistent with ISBDs.

Several later revisions issued.

• 1997 Toronto conference on AACR2• 1998 FRBR study

• 2004 Start work on AACR3• 2005 Develop RDA not AACR3• 2009 RDA launch (provisional)

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AACR 2• Part 1: Description– Chapter 1: General rules– Chapters 2 -12: Resource-type-specific rules– Chapter 13: Analytic entries

• Part 2: Headings, Uniform Titles, References– Chapter 21: Choice of access points– Chapters 22 – 26: Construction of access points

• Appendices– A: Capitalisation, B: Abbreviations, C: Numerals,

D: Glossary, E: Initial articles

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What’s wrong with AACR?• Increasingly complex• Lack of logical structure• Mixing content and carrier data• Hierarchical relationships missing• Anglo-American centric viewpoint• Written before FRBR• Not enough support for collocation• Unclear relationship with MARC Format

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RDA – The Aims• Rules should be easy to use and interpret • Be applicable to an online, networked environment• Provide effective bibliographic control for all types of

media• Encourage use beyond the library community• Be compatible with other similar standards• Have a logical structure based on internationally

agreed principles• Separate content and carrier data• Examples – more of them, more appropriate

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Who is working on RDA?• Joint Steering Committee (JSC)– 1 representative each from:

ACOC, ALA, BL, CCC, CILIP, LC– JSC reps consult with their ‘constituency’• In UK, CILIP/BL Committee on RDA plus

specialist groups (e.g. Rare Books Group, IAML(UK & Ireland) )

• RDA Editor: Tom Delsey• RDA Project Manager: Marjorie Bloss

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And also

• Task focused working groups– RDA GMD/SMD Working Group– RDA and ONIX Initiative– RDA Examples Working Groupsand– DCMI RDA Task Group

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How is RDA being developed?• Draft – (responses – revised drafts – further

responses, etc.) – acceptance

• Latest draft released 17 Nov. 2008;responses to date from:– ACOC, ALA, BL, CCC, CILIP, LC– France, Germany, New Zealand, Norway, Spain,

Sweden– ISSN International Centre

• Final product – the publishers (ALA, CILIP, CLA)

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RDA Timeline• 2005– Prospectus issued– Draft of chapters relating to description– Content and carrier studies

• 2006 and 2007– Further drafts of chapters on description and access– Work on appendices and glossary

• 2008– Draft issued in PDF format in November

• 2009– First public view of online product – late February 2009?

• June 2010 – Publication ready?

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RDA Outline Structure• Introduction• Attributes– Sections 1 to 4 (chapters 1 to 16)

• Relationships – Sections 5 to 10 (chapters 17 to 37)

• Appendices A to M• Glossary

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What will RDA look like? - 1

• Section 1: Recording manifestation and item attributes– Ch. 1 General guidelines– Ch. 2 Identifying manifestations and items– Ch. 3 Describing carriers (technical description)– Ch. 4 Providing acquisition and access information

(terms of availability, etc.)

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What will RDA look like? - 2

• Section 2: Recording attributes of work and expression– Ch. 5 General guidelines (incl. construction of access points

for works and expressions)– Ch. 6 Identifying works and expressions (e.g. uniform and

collective titles, etc.)– Ch. 7 Describing additional attributes of works and

expressions (incl. nature and coverage of content, intended audience, etc.)

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What will RDA look like? - 3• Section 3: Ch. 8, 9, 10, 11

Recording attributes of person, family and corporate body (= name headings)

• Section 4: Ch. 12, 13, 14, 15, 16Recording attributes of concept, object, event and place (= subject headings)

• Section 5: Ch. 17Recording primary relationships between work, expression, manifestation and item

• Section 6: Ch. 18, 19, 20, 21, 22Recording relationships to persons, families and corporate bodies associated with a resource

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What will RDA look like? – 4• Section 7: Ch. 23

Recording subject relationships• Section 8: Ch. 24, 25, 26, 27, 28

Recording relationships between works, expressions, manifestations and items

• Section 9: Ch. 29, 30, 31, 32Recording relationships between persons, families and corporate bodies

• Section 10: Ch. 33, 34, 35, 36, 37Recording relationships between concepts, objects, events and places

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What will RDA look like? - 5• Appendices

A: CapitalisationB: AbbreviationsC: Initial articlesD: Record syntaxes for descriptive data (ISBD, M21, DC)E: Record syntaxes for access point control dataF: Additional instructions on names of personsG: Titles of nobility, rank, etc.H: Conversion of dates to Gregorian calendarJ, K, L, M: Relationship designatorsGlossaryIndex

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Using RDA

• First analyse the resource being described– What is the content type?– Held in what carrier form?– Which audience is it intended for or primarily used

by?– To what other resources is it related?– To which persons, families or corporate bodies is it

related?– To what concepts, events and places is it related?

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One rule for all …Mostly:• Rules apply to all content types• Rules apply to all media typesWith• Examples of application to specific content and

mediaOccasionally:• Rules apply to specific materials or contexts

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Words, words, words …• Can look opaque or ‘going round in circles’• Trying to avoid reference to specific content and carriers• Hope to improve wording over time

“Use as the preferred source of information a source forming part of the resource itself that is appropriate to (a) the type of description and (b) the presentation format of the resource”

Means:• Comprehensive or analytical description• Multiple pieces, early print, moving images, or ‘all other

materials’

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RDA – What will it be?• Initially an online resource– Complete text– Pricing, subscription, etc. - still not decided

• Potentially:– Concise text– Tailored texts (law, music, serials, etc.)– Training resource– Incorporated into LMS cataloguing modules

• Loose-leaf print version(s)

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Beyond RDA

RDA aims to be:• Independent of communication formats– UNIMARC, MARC, MARCXML, MODS/MADS– DC, EAD, ISBD, VRA, MPEG7

• Compatible / better aligned with other similar standards, for example:– Archives: ISAD(G)– Museums: Cataloguing Cultural Objects

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RDA and MARC 21• Mapping RDA and MARC 21– Report issued in Nov. 2006 and discussed at

MARBI Midwinter 2007

• How will RDA impact on MARC 21?– New fields / subfields now being added

• How will MARC 21 impact on RDA?– Identification of data provisions in MARC 21 that

were not in early draft of RDA– This fed into RDA development process

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Looking into the crystal ball• FRBR– Potential influence on development of cataloguing

systems– Authority records, uniform titles, work records

• OPACs– Multiple interfaces for different audiences– Enhance for accessibility - supports all users– Links (actual resources, restrictions, supporting or

associated resources)• RDA– Use outside the library domain

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Any Questions?

http://www.catalogingfutures.com/catalogingfutures/rda-online/

http://www.rdaonline.org/