During 2017, the RDA Toolkit content will be “frozen” to allow for work to progress on a major project to enhance functionality and to incorporate changes that better support linked data applications. The structural changes include addressing both the transcription and recording of data via the 4-fold path (unstructured description, structured description which includes authorized access points, identifiers, and URIs), and incorporating this guidance throughout the RDA text.
Making these changes to RDA will allow catalogers to re-conceptualize data elements, moving beyond AACR2 and MARC perspectives. For example, the title proper could be considered a type of note, and the complete imprint could be transcribed “as is”, as a manifestation statement.
This presentation will explain these four choices in context, giving attendees the opportunity to consider which option works best in a given situation. Those situations encompass both different types of data (authors, imprints, ISBNs, etc.) and different encoding schemes (for example: catalog cards, MARC records, and RDF triples). Examples and exercises will be incorporated into the session, which will be presented by the ALA Representative to the RDA Steering Committee.
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- Kathy Glennan, Head, Original and Special Collections Cataloging, University of Maryland, University Libraries, and ALA Representative to the RDA Steering Committee
Kathy Glennan has more than 30 years of experience cataloging scores and audio recordings, and now serves as Head of Original and Special Collections Cataloging at the University of Maryland. She holds a master’s degree in Library Science from UCLA, and a bachelor’s degree in Music from Swarthmore College. Kathy is professionally active in the Music Library Association, the Program for Cooperative Cataloging, and ALCTS, where she has served both as a liaison and a voting member of the Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access. Since 2005, Kathy’s professional contributions and scholarship have focused on the development of RDA: Resource Description and Access, with a special emphasis on music cataloging instructions. In 2013, she became the ALA Representative to the Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA (now known as the RDA Steering Committee). In this role, she spends her time interpreting RDA instructions, identifying problems, and shepherding change proposals from ALA to improve RDA.
