RDA for arts researchers and specialist libraries

摘要

I am fairly new to both MARC21 cataloguing and the CIG group, having recently completed the CILIP basic cataloguing training, and I was fortunate to be selected for the CIG sponsored place at the extremely popular ‘RDA in a Day’ course. I would very much welcome any feedback, comments or suggestions in response to my report. The Stuart Hall Library (SHL) is a specialist reference library in Shoreditch, London, that holds the collections and research of the arts organisation Iniva (Institute of International Visual Arts). As Librarian and Manager of a library with an international arts usership, it is important to me that we move to international industry standards of cataloguing and that we are accessible and visible online for researchers around the world. I am currently implementing a move to a new Library Management System (LMS) that will hold full MARC records (our current one is MODS, or Metadata Object Description Schema, -based1 ). This article considers the implications of updating our records to RDA (Resource Description and Access) for the future of the library data. The RDA in a Day course took a very practical, hands-on, practice-lead approach, which gave me a good understanding of RDA’s structure and how to apply it. It provoked conceptual questions for me about the nature of linked data, how it differs from the AACR2 (Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules) model, and – most importantly – what might be the advantages of RDA and linked data in general and for the Stuart Hall Library (SHL) collection in particular; what can it do that our current record structures can’t? When many new Library Management Systems and discovery systems have the capacity to search anywhere in the records for any piece of information, and to search across library’s collection catalogues and archival systems, what is the value of RDA’s linked data structure? What is the conceptual framework of RDA, what are its implications for searching and retrieving information, and how might it affect the shape of knowledge? Below, I consider the potential of RDA and possible future applications for SHL as I understand them from the RDA in a Day course and from my subsequent research.