The development of Resource Description and Access, the planned replacement for Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, Second Edition anticipated for a 2009 release, has not been without controversy, as AL Associate Editor Dan Kraus detailed in an October 2007 report (p. 66-67). It's perhaps not surprising that the adoption of AACR2 wasn't without its strains as well.

Before AACR2's publication, the Library of Congress had announced a January 1980 date to adopt it. The controversy first hit AL's pages in the May 1978 issue, in in a brief before-the-table-of-contents wrap-up. The "Page One" department reported that OCLC Director Fred Kilgour had announced resistance (p. 254). "There have been enough statements... to suggest that adoption of AACR2 may increase library costs without an increase in benefits to library patrons. If such should turn out to be the case, OCLC would have to oppose adoption," Kilgour explained, in a quote from the Chronicle of Higher Education.

He wasn't the only one with concerns. At an August 3 summit at ALA Headquarters (Sept., p. 450), 21 representatives of several library organizations (including the Association of Research Libraries, the Council on Computerized Library Networks, the Council on Library Resources, and the National Library of Medicine) unanimously passed a resolution urging LC to delay AACR2's adoption by a year—an action LC did, indeed, take.

Not that that needed to end anything. AACR2 co-editor Michael Gorman published a November article (p. 620-621) scolding the delay and the "proposals for another set of shabby compromises" that came after it. The only way to achieve efficiency, progress, and reader service, he argued, was to "by starting new catalogs based on a single standard of descriptive cataloging (AACR2) and upon a rational system of subject headings."

Despite the delay, Gorman predicted ultimate victory: "Historians of cataloging in the 20th century will see that the reactionaries always win the battles and the progressives always win the wars," he wrote.

Gorman's article was rebutted in the December issue by Susan K. Martin, who praised the delay: "The year's delay in adoption of AACR2 is hardly capricious; haste could create a financial and bibliographic monster." (p. 689-691.)

She also, however, called for active preparation for the switch. "We cannot sit on our hands bewailing our plight. We must attempt within our own libraries and within the profession to assess the tasks to be performed and devise techniques to yield more information so that we can make intelligent decisions."

—Greg Landgraf, American Libraries editorial assistant.