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Resource Description and Access (RDA) is a standard for descriptive
cataloging In library and information science, cataloging ( US) or cataloguing ( UK) is the process of creating metadata representing information resources, such as books, sound recordings, moving images, etc. Cataloging provides information such as auth ...
initially released in June 2010, providing instructions and guidelines on formulating bibliographic data. Intended for use by
libraries A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...
and other cultural organizations such as museums and archives, RDA is the successor to '' Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, Second Edition'' (AACR2).


Background

RDA emerged from the International Conference on the Principles & Future Development of AACR held in Toronto in 1997. It is published jointly by the
American Library Association The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with 49,727 members a ...
, the Canadian Federation of Library Associations, and the
Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, since 2017 branded CILIP: The library and information association (pronounced ), is a professional body for librarians, information specialists and knowledge managers in the U ...
(CILIP) in the United Kingdom. Maintenance of RDA is the responsibility of the RDA Steering Committee (RSC). As of 2015, RSC is undergoing a transition to an international governance structure, expected to be in place in 2019. RDA instructions and guidelines are available through RDA Toolkit, an online subscription service, and in a print format. RDA training materials and texts are available online and in print.


Features

RDA is a package of data elements, guidelines, and instructions for creating library and cultural heritage resource metadata that are well-formed according to international models for user-focused linked data applications. The underlying conceptual models for RDA are the
Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR ) is a conceptual entity–relationship model developed by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) that relates user tasks of retrieval and access in onlin ...
(FRBR),
Functional Requirements for Authority Data Functional Requirements for Authority Data (FRAD), formerly known as Functional Requirements for Authority Records (FRAR) is a conceptual entity-relationship model developed by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions ...
(FRAD), and
Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Data Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Data (FRSAD), previously known as Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Records (FRSAR), is a conceptual entity-relationship model developed by the International Federation of Library Associatio ...
(FRSAD) maintained by IFLA, and will be compliant with the Library Reference Model, the IFLA standard that consolidates them.


RDA Vocabularies

RDA Vocabularies is a representation of the RDA entities, elements, relationship designators, and controlled terms in RDF (Resource Description Framework). The Vocabularies are intended to support
linked data In computing, linked data (often capitalized as Linked Data) is structured data which is interlinked with other data so it becomes more useful through semantic queries. It builds upon standard Web technologies such as HTTP, RDF and URIs, but ...
applications using RDA. They are maintained in the Open Metadata Registry, a
metadata registry A metadata registry is a central location in an organization where metadata definitions are stored and maintained in a controlled method. A metadata repository is the database where metadata is stored. The registry also adds relationships with re ...
, and released via
GitHub GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continuous ...
and the RDA Registry. The human-readable labels, definitions, and other textual annotations in the Vocabularies are known as RDA Reference. The RDA Reference data are used in the production of RDA Toolkit content. The RDA Vocabularies and RDA Reference are available under an open license.


Internationalization

RDA is in step with the Statement of International Cataloguing Principles published by IFLA in 2009, and updated in 2016. The Committee of Principals for RDA, now the RDA Board, announced its commitment to internationalization of RDA in 2015. This is reflected in the new governance structure with representation based on the
United Nations Regional Groups The United Nations Regional Groups are the geopolitical regional groups of member states of the United Nations. Originally, the UN member states were unofficially organized into five groups as an informal means of sharing the distribution of posts ...
, comprising, Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, North America, and Oceania. As of May 2017, the RDA Toolkit has been translated from English into Catalan, Chinese, Finnish, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. RDA Reference is currently being translated into these languages as well as others including Arabic, Danish, Dutch, Greek, Hebrew, Swedish, and Vietnamese.


Adoption of RDA

In March 2012 the
Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...
announced that it would fully implement RDA cataloging by the end of March 2013.
Library and Archives Canada Library and Archives Canada (LAC; french: Bibliothèque et Archives Canada) is the federal institution, tasked with acquiring, preserving, and providing accessibility to the documentary heritage of Canada. The national archive and library is ...
fully implemented the standard in September 2013.
British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...
,
National Library of Australia The National Library of Australia (NLA), formerly the Commonwealth National Library and Commonwealth Parliament Library, is the largest reference library in Australia, responsible under the terms of the ''National Library Act 1960'' for "mainta ...
, and
Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The German National Library (DNB; german: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek) is the central archival library and national bibliographic centre for the Federal Republic of Germany. It is one of the largest libraries in the world. Its task is to colle ...
and other national libraries have since implemented RDA.


Opposition

In the United States, the cataloguing community expressed reservations about the new standard in regard to both the
business case A business case captures the reasoning for initiating a project or task. It is often presented in a well-structured written document, but may also come in the form of a short verbal agreement or presentation. The logic of the business case is that, ...
for RDA in a depressed economy and the value of the standard's stated goals. Michael Gorman, one of the authors of AACR2, was particularly vocal in expression of his opposition to the new guidelines, claiming that RDA was poorly written and organized, and that the plan for RDA unnecessarily abandoned established cataloging practices. Others felt that RDA was too rooted in past practices and therefore was not a vision for the future. In response to these concerns, the three
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...
national libraries (Library of Congress,
National Library of Medicine The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM), operated by the United States federal government, is the world's largest medical library. Located in Bethesda, Maryland, the NLM is an institute within the National Institutes of Health. Its ...
, and the
National Agricultural Library The United States National Agricultural Library (NAL) is one of the world's largest agricultural research libraries, and serves as a national library of the United States and as the library of the United States Department of Agriculture. Located ...
) organized a nationwide test of the new standard. On 13 June 2011, the Library of Congress, the National Agricultural Library, and the National Library of Medicine released the results of their testing. The test found that RDA to some degree met most of the goals that the JSC put forth for the new code and failed to meet a few of those goals. The Coordinating Committee admitted that they "wrestled with articulating a business case for implementing RDA", nevertheless the report recommended that RDA be adopted by the three national libraries, contingent on several improvements being made. The earliest possible date for implementation was given as January 2013, as the consensus emerging from the analysis of the test data showed that while there were discernible benefits to implementing RDA, these benefits would not be realized without further changes to current cataloging practices, including developing a successor to the
MARC Marc or MARC may refer to: People * Marc (given name), people with the first name * Marc (surname), people with the family name Acronyms * MARC standards, a data format used for library cataloging, * MARC Train, a regional commuter rail system o ...
format. Several other institutions were involved in the RDA test. Many of these institutions documented their findings in a special issue of '' Cataloging & Classification Quarterly''.


See also

*
International Standard Bibliographic Description The International Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD) is a set of rules produced by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) to create a bibliographic description in a standard, human-readable form, especial ...
(ISBD) * Bibliographic Framework Initiative (BIBFRAME) * Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules (AACR) *
Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR ) is a conceptual entity–relationship model developed by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) that relates user tasks of retrieval and access in onlin ...
(FRBR) *
Functional Requirements for Authority Data Functional Requirements for Authority Data (FRAD), formerly known as Functional Requirements for Authority Records (FRAR) is a conceptual entity-relationship model developed by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions ...
(FRAD) *
Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Data Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Data (FRSAD), previously known as Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Records (FRSAR), is a conceptual entity-relationship model developed by the International Federation of Library Associatio ...
(FRSAD) * International Cataloguing Principles (ICP) * MAchine-Readable Cataloging (MARC) * (RAK) *
Dublin Core 220px, Logo image of DCMI, which formulates Dublin Core The Dublin Core, also known as the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (DCMES), is a set of fifteen "core" elements (properties) for describing resources. This fifteen-element Dublin Core has ...
* Library Reference Model


References


External links


Official website of the RDA Steering CommitteeRDA ToolkitEuropean RDA Interest Group (EURIG)IFLA - Statement of International Cataloguing Principles
{{Authority control Library cataloging and classification Metadata