The International Development of RDA: Resource Description and

Access Barbara B. Tillett, Ph.D.

Chief, Policy & Standards Division, Library of Congress& Chair, Joint Steering Committee for Development of

RDA

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What’s wrong with AACR2?

• Increasingly complex

• Lack of logical structure

• Mixing content and carrier data

• Hierarchical relationships missing

• Written before FRBR

• Not enough support for collocation

• Before Internet and well-formed metadata

• Anglo-American centric viewpoint

Based on slide from Ann Chapman, UKOLN

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1997 International Conference on the Principles and Future

Development of AACR• Toronto,

Canada

• JSC invited worldwide experts

• Issues leading to RDA

• Principles

• Content vs. carrier

• Seriality

• Internationalization

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AACR3AACR3

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RDA based on IFLA’s international models and

principles

• Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR; 1998)

• Functional Requirements for Authority Data (FRAD; 2009)

• Statement of International Cataloguing Principles (ICP; 2009)

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General Principles (ICP)

Convenience of user Representation Common usage Accuracy Sufficiency and

necessity Significance Economy

Consistency and Standardization

Integration Defensible, not

arbitrary

If contradict, take a defensible, practical solution.

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FRBR • IFLA’s Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR)

• User tasks– Find– Identify– Select– Obtain

• Entities, Relationships, Attributes

• Mandatory elements for a national level bibliographic record

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• IFLA - Principles, Conceptual models, ISBD/ISSN

• ONIX (Publishers) – types of content, media, carriers

• Dublin Core, IEEE/LOM, Semantic Web, W3C“Data Modeling Meeting” - London 2007 & 2012

• RDA/MARC Working Group (MARBI)

JSC Collaborations with Other Metadata Communities

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Other Collaborations• Law Library community

– Treaties• Hebraica and Religion Teams at LC

– Bible proposals• Mss/Archives experts at LC (Mss. Div.,

NUCMC, American Folklife Center, Rare Books)– DACS

• Music Division and Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Div., Music Library Association, Canadian Assoc. of Music Libs.– AMIM2 and Ch.6 proposals for music and sound

recordings• Prints & Photographs Division

– CCO• Geography and Map Division at LC

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GOALS: RDA will be …

• A new standard for resource description and access

• Designed for the digital world• Optimized for use as an online product• Description and access of all resources

• All types of content and media

• Resulting records usable in the digital environment (Internet/Semantic Web, Web OPACs, etc.)

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RDA – The Goals • 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 appropriateslide Ann Chapman, UKOLN

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RDA Toolkit Web Page

Translations of RDA

German

Spanish

French

Chinese

Italian

(others in the works: Portuguese, Finnish, Croatian, and more)

RDA Administration - CoP

ALA BL

CLA

CILIP

LAC

LC

NLA

BritishLibrary

Library & ArchivesCanada

Library of Congress

NationalLibrary ofAustralia

AmericanLibraryAssociation

Chartered Institutesof Library & InformationProfessionals

CanadianLibraryAssociation

Committee of Principals

Supporting Organizational Structure

Committee of

Principals

FundTrustees/Publishers

Joint SteeringCommittee

ALACC:DA

ACOC BL CCC CILIP/BL LCDNB

JSC Membership

• Expanded JSC membership to DNB (2011+) Christine Frodl– First official proposal (on “Initial articles”)

approved in Glasgow, Nov. 2011

• New JSC Secretary (2012+) Judy Kuhagen

• New JSC Chair (Nov. 2011+) Barbara Tillett

JSC in Glasgow, Nov. 2011

Kevin Marsh (ACOC)Christine Frodl (DNB)John Attig (ALA)Barbara Tillett (LC)Deirdre Kiorgaard (ACOC)

Marg Stewart (CCC/LAC)Gordon Dunsire (CILIP)Thurstan Young (past-JSC Sec)Alan Danskin (BL, JSC Chair in 2011)

Internationalization of JSC Membership

• JSC added DNB representative 2011– substantial commitment to RDA already made by

DNB– preparation of the German translation– announced its intention to implement RDA during

2013

• Up to two further members to JSC within the next three years

• JSC recommends scheduling a fundamental review, to take place not later than end 2014, to establish a principled approach to participation in RDA development and JSC membership

JSC Activities

• Development & maintenance of RDA– RDA Toolkit content,

mappings, examples– Element set & value

vocabularies on the Open Metadata Registry

• Training & Outreach– Europe (EURIG), Asia, South

America/Latin America, etc.

• Collaborations– RDA/ONIX Framework– ISBD/ISSN/FRBR– Music, Law, Religion,

Archives communities

• Web site:

http://www.rda-jsc.org

http://www.rda-jsc.org

Continuous Improvements• Review and improve instructions

– Revise instructions carried forward from AACR2

– Goal: Well-formed metadata to describe resources/relationships and provide access

• Build on ICP, FRBR/FRAD

– Example: April 2012 Update =135 RDA changes

• 78 “Proposals”• 65 “Fast Track”

Changes to RDA - Process

• Proposals for new or changed content of the RDA instructions– People in the countries represented by JSC

members• Send written proposal to appropriate JSC constituency

representative for those regions of the world (Germany, Australia, Canada, UK, US)

– All others send proposals to the JSC Chair

• Proposals reviewed by JSC (annually for now)– Approved proposals entered into the RDA Toolkit

in April or October

Corrections to Errors - Process

• RDA content corrections– Channel same as for proposals to JSC – JSC member checks with other JSC members

to “Fast Track”– Once approved, corrections made to RDA

Toolkit monthly (2nd Tuesday each month)

• RDA Toolkit corrections, suggestions, and questions– Send to RDAToolkit “Support”: (

http://access.rdatoolkit.org)

RDA Content questions

• Library of Congress

LChelp4rda@loc.gov

Any other business

• Contact the JSC Chair

• JSCChair@rdatoolkit.org

Conclusions

• International participation in the creation and development of RDA

• International focus of the instructions – work in progress

• Multilingual tool