"RDA: End of the World Postponed?" by Kevin M. Randall

Kevin Randall, an RDA proponent and the Principal Serials Cataloger at Northwestern University, provides an overview of some of the major issues surrounding Resource Description and Access in his article, "RDA: End of the World Postponed?" In the article, Randall tackles questions such as:

• Why should we switch to RDA if the records aren't really much different from AACR2 records? Can't we just fix AACR2?
• What's all this about FRBR, and why are we rushing into it blindly?
• Are we putting the rules cart before the format horse?
• We finally got continuing resources, now where did they go?
• Have we abandoned ISBD?
• Isn't the U.S. RDA test really just for show? Isn't implementation a foregone conclusion?
• That was then, this is now . . . what's the future?

If you've grown weary of following all the RDA discussions on various discussion lists, this article will help catch you up on some of the current debates. As catalogers well know, cataloging rules are all too often blamed for the shortcomings of OPACs, so I want to note one particular quote that I wish all reference librarians and library administrators would read:

"... the cataloger’s work could be aided to an extreme degree by truly suitable and modern cataloging
interfaces. (For many years complaints about the difficulty and expense of cataloging have been largely misplaced. The problems have far less to do with the cataloging rules and the MARC format than they have to do with an electronic cataloging interface that after four decades still holds onto its original basic concept: read a book of cataloging rules, and apply those rules in filling out a MARC tag workform)"--P. 339.

Randall, Kevin M. "RDA: End of the World Postponed?" Serials Librarian 61, no. 3-4 (Oct. 2011): 334-345. doi:10.1080/0361526X.2011.617297


[Note: My apologies to readers and to Mr. Randall for the lateness of this posting. I had been relying on an RSS feed for information on new articles, but never received notice of this one. It wasn't until I saw a citation to the article in the NASIG Newsletter that I discovered the omission.]

588 Field: Source of Description Note

Now available on the CONSER website, information on the new source of description note:

• Draft instructions for the MARC 588 field (pages from the CONSER Editing Guide)
• PowerPoint slides from a recent webinar
  
• Archived webinar
  

CONSER Operations Representatives Meeting

Outcomes and Action Items from the CONSER Operations Representatives Meeting, held May 6-7, 2010, have now been posted on the CONSER website. Topics covered include:

• ISBD punctuation
• Implementation of new MARC coding
• Multiple character set guidelines
• Open Access Project Task Group report
• Lack of one-to-one correspondence between print and online versions due to changes in title change rules
• Linking field issues
• Changes to uniform titles
• RDA testing
• ISSN-L
• And more!
  

Notes from the ALA Mid-Winter CONSER-At-Large Meeting

Notes from the CONSER-At-Large Meeting held January 17, 2010, are now available. Topics covered include:

• Cooperative Open Access Journal Project
• Repeatable 260 Field
• Format changes from CD-ROM to DVD-ROM
• ISSN Report
  

More on the Repeatable MARC 260 Field

CONSER has posted a recording of a recent webinar, "A Passing Interest in Publishers: Multiple 260 Fields in the MARC Record" presented by Melissa Beck and Valerie Bross, both of UCLA. The webinar covers repeatable 260s for serials, integrating resources, and multipart monographs. The webinar recording is about 1 hour in length, followed by a little over 10 minutes of discussion.

Links to the webinar recording (via Elluminate) and related information are on the right-hand column of the CONSER homepage. Or you can link directly to the webinar recording, PowerPoint slides, and chat session transcript.

A previous posting included a link to the 260 field documentation.

Information on the Repeatable 260 Field

The Library of Congress has announced its plans for implementing the repeatability of the MARC 21 260 field. The Library of Congress and Program for Cooperative Cataloging plan to implement the changes on September 1, 2009. Guidelines for the repeatable 260 field (to account for publication data that changes over time) are now available.

Preservation Actions, MARC 21 Field 583, and Communal Local Holdings Records in OCLC WorldCat

A white paper entitled, "Preservation Actions, MARC 21 Field 583, and Communal Local Holdings Records in OCLC WorldCat," is now available via the CONSER Web site. It discusses a proposal to record data on preservation actions and commitments for print serials. The collection of this data is necessitated by the trend in some libraries to discard print copies when online versions are available.

MARC Coding for Serials

The North American Serials Interest Group has published a new NASIGuide, "MARC Coding for Serials." The guide was written by Elizabeth McDonald and Beverly Geckle and "focuses on how serial MARC records differ from records for other formats."

A complete listing of NASIGuides is available online and includes others of interest to serials catalogers, such as:

• "ISSN" by Donna Packer
  
• "Serials Holdings" by Frieda Rosenberg
  
• "Title Changes" by Michele Seikel
  

MARC Field 588 Proposal

MARC Discussion Paper no. 2009-DP02, regarding the proposed definition of field 588 for a metadata control note, is now available. In serial records, the field would be used for source of title, description based on, and latest issue consulted notes, as well as other data useful for tracking changes. Since this information is primarily of interest to catalogers, having a separate MARC field for the data would allow it to be suppressed from OPAC displays.

via Catalogablog

New PCC Guidelines for 440 Field (Series Statement)

The Program for Cooperative Cataloging has issued the following guidelines for implementing the recent decision to make field 440 obsolete. The PCC recommends that members implement this change beginning Oct 24, 2008.

PCC Guidelines for Field 440

Sincerely
Les Hawkins
CONSER Coordinator
Library of Congress
Washington, DC 20740
v. 202 707-5185
lhaw@loc.gov

via SERIALST and PCCLIST

CONSER At-Large Meeting, ALA 2008

The summary of the CONSER At-Large Meeting held at ALA Annual is now available on the CONSER Web site. Topics covered include:

• the proposal to make the 440 field obsolete
  
• the proposal to add new subfields to the 8XX fields (including one for ISSN)
  
• the use of the 007 field in the single record cataloging approach
  
• updates to the CONSER Standard Record (CSR) guidelines
  
• a new proposal to define the 588 field for "description based on" and "latest issue consulted" notes
  
• the repeatable 260 field