The potential impact of RDA on OPAC displays Philip Hider & Ann Huthwaite

From AACR2 to RDA Still in draft, so only at the ‘promise’ stage RDA facilitates changes, but cataloguers and systems implement them Three departures identified as potential impacts on OPAC displays

Three important departures Divorce from ISBD format Transformation of GMD/SMDs FRBRisation

AACR-ISBD divorce Married in the 1978 (AACR2) AACR2 elements mirror ISBD elements Arrangement of element the same Punctuation between elements the same RDA to be a content standard only No rules about order or punctuation, except within elements

ISBD-free RDA Divorce allows for -- new elements -- redefinition of elements -- dropping of elements

New & revised elements Some/many notes will become formal elements, e.g. ‘language’ ‘intended audience’ Some aspects becoming their own element, e.g. copyright date Some elements expanding, e.g. ‘resource identifiers’ from ‘standard numbers’ GMDs/SMDs will be superseded

Implications for OPAC displays No need for colons and semi-colons! Can arrange elements in way you like – don’t need to have them grouped in areas Can choose which ones to have at which level Notes about elements can be displayed with the relevant element(s) Each element can be labelled and you can choose the label

Transformation of GMD/SMDs The ‘class of material’ concept has been abandoned Instead, there will be two different categorizations: -- for a resource’s content -- for a resource’s type of carrier Cataloguers will select one or more terms from the two lists

Content category Broad terms such as ‘text’ and ‘musical notation’ Useful for collating/sorting resources by form of content, irrespective of carrier (particularly in the online context)

Type of carrier category This may be a list of more specific terms, e.g. ‘sheet’ ‘audio cassette’ ‘microfiche’ Probably will be closely related to the terms used for the extent, may match them These terms can be displayed more prominently than present

FRBRisation RDA to be based on FRBR/FRAR model Including FRBR’s resource hierarchy, work expression manifestation item Current cataloguing mixes these levels up

FRBRisation New rules for uniform titles will allow records to be more reliably grouped by (a) work and (b) expression This will enable OPACs to display resource hierarchies and users to drill down from work, through expression, to manifestations (and items) Alleviating the multiple versions problem

Conclusion RDA promises much more flexible & creative OPAC displays IF format standards (such as MARC) follow suit And IF system developers come to the party