Metadata Blog

Getting Ready for RDA and FRBR: What You Need to Know

Barbara Tillett, Chief of the Cataloging Policy and Support Office, Library of Congress

Glenn Patton, Director of WorldCat Quality Management OCLC

Barbara Bushman, National Library of Medicine, PCC Liaison to RDA Implementation Task Force

Slides will be on conference wiki by early next week in this section: http://presentations.ala.org/index.php?title=Saturday%2C_June_28#Saturday_4pm_Start_Time

Synopsis: There were three portions to this presentation. Barbara Tillett gave background on the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) model and how the draft of Resource Description and Access (RDA) puts this into practice. Glenn Patton introduced the Functional Requirements for Authority Data (FRAD) model and how it relates to current cataloging practice. Barbara Bushman, filling in for Shawne D. Miksa, gave some background to the RDA Implementation Task Force.

Barbara Tillett, Chief of the Cataloging Policy and Support Office, Library of Congress
Barbara Tillett is the Chief of the Cataloging Policy and Support Office at the Library of Congress. Although there are many different influences to RDA, from the Paris Principles to born-digital objects, she focused on the influence of FRBR on RDA. She also mentioned she is giving a much more in-depth presentation on RDA on Sunday. RDA will debut in 2009. The point of this presentation was to shed light on what is to come and assuage some fears, but because any and all changes are so far ahead, there can be no real talk on implementation yet.

Although FRBR was published in 1998, it is not a new set of rules for bibliographic standards. Instead, it is a new perspective for what libraries, catalogers and users have always been doing. FRBR is just a new perspective for this. FRBR is not a data model, but a conceptual model. Tillett went into the explanation of work, expression, manifestation and item, the group one entities. She went on to discuss the group two and three entities and how they translate into RDA.

FRBR views this universe differently, but everything was contained before. Tillett showed a record from 1841 in the British museum that has all this information in (item, manifestation, and expression). The point of FRBR is to make these concepts clear, not to bring in new concepts. Before, these were concepts that we learned through experience and apprenticeship. RDA should make these concepts explicit.

Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/jsc/rda.html

For more on FRBR, see What is FRBR? A Conceptual Model for the Bibliographic Universe (2004) by Barbara Tillett, available as a download from LC here. 8 pages. http://www.loc.gov/cds/downloads/FRBR.PDF

Glenn Patton, Director of WorldCat Quality Management, OCLC
Glenn Patton introduced Functional Requirements for Authority Data (FRAD). Mainly, this is applying the underlying theories in FRBR to authority data. There are two objectives of this working group, namely, to gain a clear understanding of how authority data functions correctly, and to clarify the underlying concepts and improve the use of authority data in the future. Patton talked about the uses of the authority file by the catalogers and the users and brought up the model to show us what the group has come up with (see pages 4 and 7 of the report for the figures).

Patton stressed that the group was not introducing new concepts, but was interested in finding a new way to describe what the authority file is already being used for. Final draft of report is almost ready for approval. Very pleased that this is being considered in RDA.

Working Group on Functional Requirements and Numbering of Authority Records (FRANAR)
http://www.ifla.org/VII/d4/wg-franar.htm

Functional Requirements for Authority Data: a Conceptual Model
http://www.ifla.org/VII/d4/FRANAR-ConceptualModel-2ndReview.pdf


Barbara Bushman, National Library of Medicine, PCC Liaison to RDA Implementation Task Force [on behalf of
Shawne D. Miksa, Chair, RDA Implementation Committee (on the schedule but couldn’t attend)]

Barbara Bushman discussed the nature and purpose of the RDA task force. The group is made up of a balanced group of players, including smaller stakes players. The main focus should be on preparing for RDA, not on implementation of RDA.

There has been a statement written by the Library of Congress, the National Library of Medicine, and the National Agricultural Library stating that they will not implement RDA before the end of 2009.

RDA Implementation Task Force
http://www.ala.org/ala/alctscontent/CCS/groups/rda.cfm

Joint Statement of the Library of Congress, the National Library of Medicine, and the National Agricultural Library on Resource Description and Access (May 1, 2008)
http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/news/RDA_Letter_050108.pdf