RDA and the Future of Cataloging

The first rule of ALA conferences is...be flexible. I'm sitting in one of many, many hallways of the Washington State Convention and Trade Center, right across from room 615, location of the ALCTS Cataloging Norms Discussion Group. This is the first meeting I'm supposed to be blogging, but I'm not even in the room. So many people showed up for the meeting that the audience is spilled into the hallway. Fortunately, this morning I attended another excellent meeting, the Electronic Resources Interest Group (ERIG), so I'll write about that instead.

The ERIG meeting featured four speakers, all of whom are leaders in cataloging and metadata practice: Barbara Tillet, Murtha Baca, Sara Shreeves, and Mary Woodley. While I could write at length about any of their presentations, the most significant in my mind was Barbara Tillet's presentation on RDA. She provided a summary of the development of Resource Description and Access, the sequel to AACR2. In her incredibly rich presentation, she provided a vision of the future of cataloging. Essentially, RDA is being developed with the digital environment in mind and will represent a major change in direction from traditional cataloging. It is currently slated for release in 2009. Here are just some of the changes she presented:

• RDA is a standard for the content of bibliographic records, but not a standard for the display of bibliographic information. Because of this, the traditional punctuation currently used in cataloging records (a.k.a. ISBD punctuation) will no longer be mandatory.
• RDA will move away from using terminology and practices that were developed for card catalogs. In some cases, the terminology is changing. For example, the term "access points" will be used instead of "headings." "Authority control" will change to "access point control." "Preferred title" will be used instead of "uniform title."
• Some traditional cataloging practices will go away, including the main entry. The general material designation (GMD) is going away, but this information will be captured in more detail in various fields that describe an item's format.
• The rules for transcribing information will be greatly changed to a "Take what you see" approach. This means that catalogers will be encouraged to transcribe descriptive information mostly verbatim, including capitalization, abbreviations, even errors.
  
• The rules for transcription will vary for different types of resources. Transcription is more important for resources than others. For example, it is very important for unique print resources, such as rare books, but less so for digital resources.