Why Should I Care? RDA and Your Library DR. SONIA ARCHER-CAPUZZO, CATALOGER, LECTURER, LIBRARIAN OCTOBER 23, 2015 NCLA CONFERENCE, GREENSBORO, NC

What is RDA?  Resource Description and Access  Content standard  Meant to be display and encoding system neutral  Entity-relationship model  Published 2010, still being revised

RDA User Tasks  Find  Match search criteria to specific entities (via attributes and/or relationships)  Identify  Confirm that the resource found corresponds to the resource sought and distinguish between similar resources  Select  Choose entities that meet the patron’s needs and determine which do not  Obtain  Access or acquire the entity sought

Elements of RDA  Entities  Things: works, people, subjects, etc.  Attributes- collectively describe/name/define a single entity  This is what we’re used to  Relationships- between 2 entities  This is new  Important!

Why RDA?  Move beyond AACR2  Electronic catalogs (no cards)  Variety in resources  Extensibility  Flexibility across encoding standards

Does it really change anything?  Display  Searching/sorting possibilities  Conceptual changes

Display: Abbreviations  Far fewer  Easier-to-understand in many cases  “p.” is now “pages”  “v.” is now “volume”  “c” is now “©” or “copyright”  We still have some abbreviations: cm, in., min., op., no., etc.

Display: Latin Terminology  No more [sic], [S.l.], [et al.], etc.  “S.l.” is now “place of publication not identified”  “ca.” is no “approximately”  “et al.” is now “and # others”  And no more rule of three, so all names can potentially be listed in the statement of responsibility

Relationship Designators  Between people and resources, between corporate bodies and resources, between resources and other resources, between resources and their subjects, etc.  After names  Before titles  Clarification  Search and sort?

Searching/Sorting  Content, carrier, media types  More computer-encoded fields & controlled vocabularies  Redundancy

Potential  More possibilities for searching, sorting, indexing, and display  More (too much?) information

RDA AACR2

Why Should I Care? BECAUSE IT REALLY DOES MATTER!

Thank you! Dr. Sonia Archer-Capuzzo All images from Creative Commons or individual library catalogs.