Resource Description and Access: Difference between revisions

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{{Short description|Standard for descriptive cataloging}}

'''Resource Description and Access''' ('''RDA''') is a standard for descriptive [[cataloging]] initially released in June 2010,<ref>{{cite web | author=Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA | url=http://www.rda-jsc.org/rda.html#background | title=RDA: Resource Description and Access | at=Background | accessdateaccess-date=1 January 2015 | date=19 May 2014<!--last update--> | archive-date=16 October 2013 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131016202353/http://www.rda-jsc.org/rda.html#background | url-status=dead }}</ref> providing instructions and guidelines on formulating [[bibliographic record|bibliographic data]]. Intended for use by [[libraries]] 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.<ref>{{cite web | title=International Conference on the Principles and Future Development of AACR | url=http://www.rda-jsc.org/intlconf1.html | author=Joint Steering Committee for the Development of RDA | accessdateaccess-date=26 June 2014 | yeardate=1 July 2009<!--last update--> | archive-date=7 March 2015 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150307132328/http://www.rda-jsc.org/intlconf1.html | url-status=dead }}</ref> It is published jointly by the [[American Library Association]], the  [[Canadian Federation of Library Associations]], and the [[Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals]] (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.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://rda-rsc.org|title=RDA Steering Committee|last=|first=|date=|websitearchive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151118121323/http://www.rda-rsc.org/|archiveurl-urlstatus=usurped|archive-date=November 18, 2015|dead-urltitle=RDA Steering Committee|website=rda-rsc.org|access-date=2017-04-30}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.cilip.org.uk/about/projects-reviews/cilip-british-library-committee-resource-description-access-rda/guide-resource-description-access-rda|title=Guide to Resource Description and Access (RDA)|date=2017-01-04|work=CILIP|access-date=2017-04-30|language=en}}</ref>

==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-focussedfocused linked data applications.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=http://rda-rsc.org/node/235|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170617083634/http://www.rda-rsc.org/node/235|url-status=usurped|archive-date=June 17, 2017|title=Committee of Principals Affirms Commitment to the Internationalisation of RDA|last=|first=|date=|website=RDA Steering Committee|archive-url=|archive-date=|dead-url=|access-date=2017-04-30}}</ref> The underlying conceptual models for RDA are the [[Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records]] (FRBR), [[Functional Requirements for Authority Data]] (FRAD), and [[FRSAD|Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Data]] (FRSAD) maintained by [[International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions|IFLA]], and will be compliant with the [[IFLA Library Reference Model|Library Reference Model]], the IFLA standard that consolidates them.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://rda-rsc.org/ImplementationLRMinRDA|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170218135921/http://rda-rsc.org/ImplementationLRMinRDA|url-status=usurped|archive-date=February 18, 2017|title=Implementation of the LRM in RDA|last=|first=|date=|website=RDA Steering Group|archive-url=|archive-date=|dead-url=|access-date=2017-04-30}}</ref>

==RDA Vocabularies==

RDA Vocabularies is a representation of the RDA entities, elements, relationship designators, and controlled terms in [[Resource Description Framework|RDF]] (Resource Description Framework). The Vocabularies are intended to support [[linked data]] applications using RDA. They are maintained in the Open Metadata Registry,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://metadataregistry.org|title=Open Metadata Registry: supporting metadata interoperability|last=|first=|date=|website=metadataregistry.org|language=en|archive-url=|archive-date=|dead-url=|access-date=2017-04-30}}</ref> a [[metadata registry]], and released via [[GitHub]] 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.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.rdaregistry.info/rgAbout/rdaref/dataflow/|title=RDA Registry|last=|first=|date=|website=RDA Registry|language=en|archiveaccess-urldate=2017-04-30|archive-date=2017-05-03|deadarchive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170503120203/http://www.rdaregistry.info/rgAbout/rdaref/dataflow/|accessurl-datestatus=2017-04-30dead}}</ref>

The RDA Vocabularies and RDA Reference are available under an open licencelicense.

== Internationalization ==

RDA is in step with the Statement of International Cataloguing Principles published by IFLA in 2009, and updated in 2016.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.ifla.org/publications/node/11015|title=IFLA -- Statement of International Cataloguing Principles (ICP) 2016|last=|first=|date=|website=IFLA|language=en|archive-url=|archive-date=|dead-url=|access-date=2017-04-30}}</ref>

The Committee of Principals for RDA, now the RDA Board, announced its commitment to internationalization of RDA in 2015.<ref name=":0" /> This is reflected in the new governance structure with representation based on the [[United Nations Regional Groups]], 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 language|Catalan]], Chinese, Finnish, French, German, Italian, and Spanish.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.rdatoolkit.org/translation|title=RDA in Translation|last=|first=|date=|website=RDA Toolkit|language=en|archive-url=|archive-date=|dead-url=|access-date=2017-04-30}}</ref> RDA Reference is currently being translated into these languages as well as others including Arabic, Danish, Dutch, Greek, Hebrew, Swedish, and Vietnamese.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.rdaregistry.info/termList/|title=RDA value vocabularies|last=|first=|date=|website=RDA registry|language=en|archive-url=|archive-date=|dead-url=|access-date=2017-04-30}}</ref>

==Adoption of RDA==

In March 2012 the [[Library of Congress]] announced that it would fully implement RDA cataloging by the end of March 2013.<ref>{{cite press release|title=Library of Congress Announces Its Long-Range RDA Training Plan|date=2 March 2012|publisher=[[Library of Congress]]|url=httphttps://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/news_rda_implementation_date.html}}</ref> [[Library and Archives Canada]] fully implemented the standard in September 2013. [[British Library]], [[National Library of Australia]], and [[Deutsche Nationalbibliothek]] and other national libraries have since implemented RDA {{Citation needed|reason=need references to establish this fact for each library|date=February 2023}}.

===Opposition===

In the United States, the cataloguing community expressed reservations about the new standard in regard to both the [[business case]] for RDA in a depressed economy and the value of the standard's stated goals.<ref name=LCbibfuture>{{cite web|last=Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control|title=Testing Resource Description and Access (RDA)|website=[[Library of Congress]]|url=httphttps://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/rda/|accessdateaccess-date=31 January 2011}}</ref> [[Michael Gorman (librarian)|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.<ref name=Gorman>{{cite web |last=Gorman |first=Michael |title=RDA: The coming cataloguing debacle |url=http://www.slc.bc.ca/rda1007.pdf |accessdateaccess-date=31 January 2011}}</ref> Others felt that RDA was too rooted in past practices and therefore was not a vision for the future.<ref>[http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january07/coyle/01coyle.html Coyle, Karen and Diane Hillmann. Resource Description and Access (RDA): Cataloging rules for the 20th century. D-Lib Magazine, Jan./Feb. 2007, v. 13, no. 1/2.]</ref> In response to these concerns, the three [[United States]] national libraries (Library of Congress, [[United States National Library of Medicine|National Library of Medicine]], and the [[United States National Agricultural Library|National Agricultural Library]]) 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.<ref name=june2011report>{{cite web|title=Report and Recommendations of the U.S. RDA Test Coordinating Committee on the implementation of RDA—Resource Description & Access|website=[[Library of Congress]]|url=httphttps://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/rda/|accessdateaccess-date=15 June 2011}}</ref> The test found that RDA to some degree met most of the goals that the JSC (Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA) 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.<ref name=june2011report /> 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 standards|MARC]] format.<ref name=june2011report /><ref>Library of Congress. [httphttps://www.loc.gov/bibframe/news/framework-103111.html "A Bibliographic Framework for the Digital Age"]. 31 October 2011. Retrieved 26 October 2015.</ref><ref>Jan Smits, Susan M. Moore, Paige G. Andrew (2017). Fixed fields coded data for geo-related information in the MARC 21 structure: a discussion on the possible expansion of coded data elements to improve machine manipulation and user discovery. In: ''Journal of map & geography libraries : advances in geospatial information, collections & archives'', (ISSN 1542-0353), 13(2017)2, p. 261-273.</ref>

Several other institutions were involved in the RDA test. Many of these institutions documented their findings in a special issue of ''[[Cataloging & Classification Quarterly]]''.<ref>{{cite journal|editor1-last=Hall-Ellis|editor1-first=Sylvia D.|editor2-last=Ellett|editor2-first=Robert O.|title=Special Issue: RDA Testing: Lessons Learned and Challenges Revealed|journal=Cataloging & Classification Quarterly|date=2011|volume=49|issue=7-87–8}}</ref>

==See also==

* [[International Standard Bibliographic Description]] (ISBD)

* [[BIBFRAME|Bibliographic Framework Initiative]] (BIBFRAME)

*[[Dublin Core]]

* [[Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules]] (AACR)

* [[Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records]] (FRBR)

* [[Functional Requirements for Authority Data]] (FRAD)

* [[FRSAD|Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Data]] (FRSAD)

* [[International Cataloguing Principles]] (ICP)

* [[MARC standards|MAchine-Readable Cataloging]] (MARC)

* {{lang|de|[[Regeln für die alphabetische Katalogisierung]]}} (RAK)

* [[Dublin Core]]

* [[IFLA Library Reference Model|Library Reference Model]]

==References==

{{reflist|33em|refs=

<!--unused<ref name=introrda>{{cite book|last=Oliver|first=Chris|title=Introducing RDA: a guide to the basics|year=2010|publisher=[[ALA Editions]]|isbn=978-0-8389-3594-1|page=128}}</ref>-->

}}

== External links ==

*[httphttps://www.rda-rscrdatoolkit.org/rsc Official website of the RDA Steering Committee]

*[http://www.rdatoolkit.org/ RDA Toolkit]

*{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20171231025954/http://www.slainterda-rsc.org.uk/eurigeurope/ European RDA Interest Group (EURIG)]}}

*[https://www.ifla.org/publications/node/11015 IFLA -– Statement of International Cataloguing Principles]

*[http://resourcedescriptionandaccess.blogspot.com/ A blog on RDA]

*[http://www.facebook.com/groups/RDA.Librarian/ RDA.Librarian Facebook Group]

*[http://plus.google.com/communities/114381713914946747854/ RDA Cataloging Google+ Community]

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Computer-related introductions in 2010]]

[[Category:Library cataloging and classification]]

[[Category:Metadata]]