The Tools of our trade: AACR2/RDA and MARC

1
The Tools of Our Trade AACR2/RDA and MARC Guest
lecture at London Metropolitan University 13th
March 2009 Ann Chapman Community and Outreach
Team
UKOLN is supported by
2
What are our Tools?

• AACR/RDA content standard for resource
  description and access
• MARC communication and exchange format
  providing a structure for encoding the content of
  bibliographic and authority data
• Related to
• ISBD rules that organise the display of a
  bibliographic description of an item in a
  catalogue
• FRBR a entity-relational model of the data
  required to find, identify, select and obtain
  resources

3
ISBDs

• International Standard Bibliographic Descriptions
• Developed 1969 onwards by IFLA
• Defined seven areas of description and their
  order
• Title
• Statement of Responsibility
• Edition
• Resource specific information
• Publication details
• Physical description
• Series information
• Notes and standard identifiers

4
FRBR

• Functional Requirements of Bibliographic Records
• IFLA study report published 1998
• Entity-relationship model that defines
• Tasks find, identify, select, obtain
• Resource relationshipswork, expression,
  manifestation, item
• Entities people, corporate bodies (agents)
• Entities concepts, objects, events, places

5
AACR

• Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules
• A content standard for bibliographic description
  and access
• Bibliographic not just books
• Built on other, earlier sets of rules
• Key principles
• One principle entry per resource
• Catalogue from item in hand
• Chief source of information

6
AACR timeline

• 1967 UK and US editions
• 1978 Second unified edition, consistent with
  ISBDs several further revisions
• 1997 Toronto conference on AACR2
• 1998 FRBR
• 2005 Develop RDA not AACR3
• 2009 RDA launch (provisional)

7
AACR 2

• Part 1 Description
• Chapter 1 General rules
• Chapters 2 -12 Resource type - specific rules
• Chapter 13 Analytic entries
• Part 2 Headings, Uniform Titles, References
• Chapter 21 Choice of access points
• Chapters 22 26 Construction of access points
• Appendices
• A Capitalisation, B Abbreviations, C
  Numerals,D Glossary, E Initial articles

8
Whats wrong with AACR?

• Increasingly complex
• Lack of logical structure
• Mixing content and carrier data
• Hierarchical relationships missing
• Anglo-American centric viewpoint
• Written before FRBR
• Not enough support for collocation
• Unclear relationship with MARC Format

9
RDA The Aims

• Rules should be easy to use and interpret
• Be applicable to an online, networked environment
• Provide effective bibliographic control for all
  types of media
• Encourage use beyond the library community
• Be compatible with other similar standards
• Have a logical structure based on internationally
  agreed principles
• Separate content and carrier data
• Examples more of them, more appropriate

10
Who is working on RDA?

• Joint Steering Committee (JSC)
• 1 representative each fromACOC, ALA, BL, CCC,
  CILIP, LC
• JSC reps consult with their constituency
• In UK, CILIP/BL Committee on RDA plus specialist
  groups (e.g. Rare Books Group, IAML(UK Ireland)
• RDA Editor Tom Delsey
• RDA Project Manager Marjorie Bloss

11
And also

• Task focused working groups
• RDA GMD/SMD Working Group
• RDA and ONIX Initiative
• RDA Examples Working Groups
• and
• DCMI RDA Task Group

12
How is RDA being developed?

• Draft (responses revised drafts further
  responses, etc.) acceptance
• Latest draft released 17 Nov. 2008responses
  from
• ACOC, ALA, BL, CCC, CILIP, LC
• France, Germany, New Zealand, Norway, Spain,
  Sweden
• ISSN International Centre
• Final product the publishers (ALA, CILIP, CLA)

13
RDA Timelime

• 2005
• Prospectus issued
• Draft of chapters relating to description
• Content and carrier studies
• 2006 and 2007
• Further drafts of chapters on description and
  access
• Work on appendices and glossary
• 2008
• Screenshot demo in August at IFLA conference
• 2009
• Launch of online product (late February 2009?)

14
RDA Outline Structure

• Introduction
• Attributes
• Sections 1 to 4 (chapters 1 to 16)
• Relationships
• Sections 5 to 10 (chapters 17 to 37)
• Appendices A to M
• Glossary

15
What will RDA look like? - 1

• Section 1 Recording manifestation attributes
• Ch. 1 General guidelines
• Ch. 2 Identifying manifestations and items
• Ch. 3 Describing carriers (technical description)
• Ch. 4 Providing acquisition and access
  information (terms of availability, etc.)

16
What will RDA look like? - 2

• Section 2 Recording attributes of work and
  expression
• Ch. 5 General guidelines (incl. construction of
  access points for works and expressions)
• Ch. 6 Identifying works and expressions (e.g.
  uniform and collective titles, etc.)
• Ch. 7 Describing additional attributes of works
  and expressions (incl. nature and coverage of
  content, intended audience, etc.)

17
What will RDA look like? - 3

• Section 3 Ch. 8, 9, 10, 11Recording attributes
  of person, family and corporate body ( name
  headings)
• Section 4 Ch. 12, 13, 14, 15, 16Recording
  attributes of concept, object, event and place (
  subject headings)
• Section 5 Ch. 17Recording primary relationships
  between work, expression, manifestation and item
• Section 6 Ch. 18, 19, 20, 21, 22Recording
  relationships to persons, families and corporate
  bodies associated with a resource

18
What will RDA look like? 4

• Section 7 Ch. 23Recording subject relationships
• Section 8 Ch. 24, 25, 26, 27, 28Recording
  relationships between works, expressions,
  manifestations and items
• Section 9 Ch. 29, 30, 31, 32Recording
  relationships between persons, families and
  corporate bodies
• Section 10 Ch. 33, 34, 35, 36, 37Recording
  relationships between concepts, objects, events
  and places

19
What will RDA look like? - 5

• Appendices
• A Capitalisation
• B Abbreviations
• C Initial articles
• D Record syntaxes for descriptive data (ISBD,
  M21, DC)
• E Record syntaxes for access point control data
• F Additional instructions on names of persons
• G Titles of nobility, rank, etc.
• H Conversion of dates to Gregorian calendar
• J, K, L, M Relationship designators
• Glossary
• Index

20
Using RDA

• Analyse the resource being described
• What is the content type?
• Held in what carrier form?
• To what other resources is it related?
• To which persons, families or corporate bodies is
  it related?
• To what concepts, events and places is it
  related?

21
One rule for all

• Mostly
• Rules apply to all content types
• Rules apply to all media types
• With
• Examples of application to specific content and
  media
• Occasionally
• Rules apply to specific materials or
  contents(e.g. treaties, religious texts, music)

22
Words, words, words

• Can look opaque or going round in circles
• Trying to avoid reference to specific content and
  carriers
• Hope to improve wording over time
• Use as the preferred source of information a
  source forming part of the resource itself that
  is appropriate to (a) the type of description and
  (b) the presentation format of the resource.
• Means preferred source of information may vary
  according to
• Comprehensive or analytical description
• Multiple pieces, early print, moving images, or
  all other materials

23
RDA What will it be?

• Initially an online resource
• Complete text
• Pricing, subscription, etc. still not decided
• Potentially
• Concise text
• Tailored texts (law, music, serials, etc.)
• Training resource
• Incorporated into LMS cataloguing modules
• Loose-leaf print version(s)

24
RDA and beyond

• RDA aims to be
• Independent of communication formats
• UNIMARC, MARC, MARCXML, MODS/MADS
• DC, EAD, ISBD, VRA, MPEG7
• Compatible / better aligned with other similar
  standards
• Archives ISAD(G)
• Museums Cataloging Cultural Objects

25
RDA and MARC

• Mapping RDA and MARC 21
• Report issued in Nov. 2006 various proposals
  subsequently go through MARBI process
• How will RDA impact on MARC 21?
• Some new fields / subfields are being defined
• How will MARC 21 impact on RDA?
• Data provisions in MARC 21 not covered in current
  draft of RDA

26
MARC 1960s

• Library of Congress project
• Database of catalogue records
• Production of catalogue cards
• US UK versions
• Reflected differing cataloguing practices
• Developed in parallel but not identical ways

27
MARC 1970s

• Variant formats developed
• Based on either US or UK formats (AUSMARC,
  DANMARC, KORMARC, etc.)
• USMARC developed 8 material formats (Books,
  Serials, Maps, etc.)
• UNIMARC developed in 1977 by IFLA
• Intended as exchange format
• Used as the Bib format in some countries (e.g.
  France)

28
MARC Recent changes

• Expansion of USMARC to a family of formats
• Bibliographic, Holdings, Authority,
  Classification, Community Information
• Integration of USMARC bibliographic format
• Previous 8 formats integrated
• Widespread adoption of MARC 21
• Some countries simply adopt USMARC
• 1997 USMARC CANMARC become MARC 21
• 2003/4 MARC 21 enhanced by UK proposals
  British Library adopts MARC 21
• 2006/7 MARC 21 enhanced by German proposals
  this will enable libraries to move from MAB to
  MARC 21

29
MARC Structure

• Leader
• 0xx control numbers, coded data
• 1xx primary access point
• 2xx description, GMD, edition, publication
• 3xx physical description
• 4xx series
• 5xx notes
• 6xx subject access points
• 7xx additional access points
• 8xx series added entries
• 9xx local fields

30
Maintaining MARC 21

• Twice yearly MARBI meetings
• Discussion papers
• Proposals
• UK and MARC 21
• BIC Bibliographic Standards Group
• lis-ukbibs_at_jiscmail.ac.uk
• http//www.bic.org.uk/16/Bibliographic-Standards/

31
MARC and XML

• MARC has alpha-numeric 3-digit tags
• 100.1 Personal Name
• 245 a Title b Subtitle
• XML has element labels
• ltnamePersonIndirectOrdergt
• lttitlegt lttitleSubtitlegt lttitleCoverTitlegt

32
Looking into the crystal ball

• FRBR
• Potential influence on cataloguing systems
• Authority records, uniform titles, work records
• OPACs
• Multiple interfaces for different audiences
• Enhance for accessibility - supports all users
• Links (actual resources, restrictions, supporting
  or associated resources)
• RDA
• Potential use outside the library domain

33
Contact details

• Ann Chapman
• a.d.chapman_at_ukoln.ac.uk
• http//www.ukoln.ac.uk/bib-man/
• This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
  2.0 Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike licence.