Three Libraries Vow RDA Review

When the Library of Congress's (LC) Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control released its “On the Record” report in January 2008, it had a number of reservations concerning the Resource Description and Access (RDA) cataloging code being proposed as the successor to the second edition of the 1978 Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules (AACR2).

The working group went so far as to recommend the suspension of development to the international Joint Steering Committee that governs RDA's progress, citing the need for further research. Deanna Marcum, associate librarian for library services, and others at LC have been studying the working group's report and are expected to present a formal response on the issue of RDA in early June 2008.

In anticipation of that report, LC, the National Agricultural Library, and the National Library of Medicine issued a joint statement on May 1 about their consideration of RDA, along with a prefatory comment from Marcum. The three libraries have agreed to make their recommendation on the new standard as a group and have committed to collectively undertaking steps to complete a “systematic review of RDA” before making any further decisions.

While nearly everyone agrees that an update to AACR2 is long overdue, RDA has not been without its detractors. The implementation of RDA has been a point of contention in the cataloging and technical services world since it was first proposed in 2005, with many catalogers saying that the new standard does not reach far enough in its revisions, or that it is the wrong strategy entirely for a revision of the cataloging code in an age that is so far removed from the card catalog model of the past.

RDA was originally conceived as a way to cope more easily with a digital environment and account for nonbook and electronic materials with the cataloging code; it was designed as a multinational web-based tool incorporating a new framework for cataloging and access known as Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR). FRBR is not itself a set of cataloging rules but rather a means by which bibliographic relationships are made explicit in a model linking entities (works, whether book, audio, etc., authors, and so on) with attributes that describe them.

However, critics of RDA, including the LC's Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control, have not yet been fully convinced of FRBR's effectiveness or appropriateness as compared with the traditional cataloging model. LC has so far called for more testing and analysis to be done on FRBR, while others in the cataloging community take views ranging from concern that RDA is still too print-centric and just a cosmetic update to the AACR2 cataloging rules, to the belief that RDA throws the baby out with the bath water in its attempt to differentiate itself from the still-functional rules of cataloging past.

The three agencies maintain in their joint statement that a revised cataloging code is a necessary element of a modern bibliographic environment, but they also recognize cost issues in reiterating the budget-conscious comments previously made by the LC bibliographic group, saying that the “articulation of the business case for RDA” will be fundamental to the implementation decision in addition to a “positive evaluation of RDA's utility within the library and information environment.”

The few steps broadly outlined in the statement include the development of “milestones” and associated evaluation criteria for a potential RDA implementation, discussion with vendors about their concerns with the new standard, usability testing among technical services librarians and staff, and feasibility testing to determine the extent of compatibility and integration of existing records with those under an RDA system.

LC has so far remained agnostic on the issue of adopting RDA, recognizing its symbolic if not explicit leadership role within the cataloging community. Though a negative report from LC would be a blow to the code's development, work on RDA will continue by the other members of the Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA, including the British Library, Library and Archives Canada, and theNational Library of Australia. According to that committee, a complete draft of RDA will be available in July 2008, with the full release planned for 2009.