Chapter 4

The ‘Europeanisation’ of Cataloguing

Codes: An Analysis of the Evolution

of RDA

Alan Poulter

Abstract

Purpose — This chapter uniquely addresses the topic of introducing acommon set of cataloguing rules throughout Europe. While no suchdevelopment is on the immediate horizon, there are signs that currenttrends are moving towards that possibility. At first glance, this mayappear a trivial development in that ‘European’ standards in manyareas are in place and not a source of contention, but in cataloguing,this is not the case.

Design/methodology/approach — The main method used for theresearch was an in-depth literature review. To gauge the current stateof European interest in RDA, an email survey was performed inAugust 2011, of all the European members of the Standing Committeeof the Cataloguing Section of the International Federation of LibraryAssociations (IFLA), and all the European speakers at the ‘RDA inEurope: making it happen!’ conference. This sample was chosen asbeing those individuals who would be most able to give a view fromEurope on current cataloguing developments.

Findings — There is considerable interest throughout Europeregarding RDA and harmonising cataloguing codes, but there maybe conceptual problems in that some European national cultures may

Library and Information Science Trends and Research: Europe

Library and Information Science, Volume 6, 67–84

Copyright r 2012 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited

All rights of reproduction in any form reserved

ISSN: 1876-0562/doi:10.1108/S1876-0562(2012)0000006007

68 Alan Poulter

diverge significantly from a core of rules based on English-speakingcountries.

Originality/value — This chapter combines in-depth analysis of theproposed new cataloguing code Resource Description and Access(RDA), which will be adopted by English-speaking countries with anovel perspective relating to its adoption in non-English-speakingcountries in Europe.

Keywords: Cataloguing codes; Europe; resource description and access(RDA)

4.1. Introduction

This chapter addresses the topic of introducing a common set of cataloguingrules throughout Europe. While no such development is on the immediatehorizon, there are signs that current trends are moving towards thatpossibility. At first glance, this may appear a trivial development in that‘European’ standards in many areas are in place and not a source ofcontention, but in cataloguing, this is not the case. This chapter first explainsthe necessary background of cataloguing for those not familiar with theprocess/discipline. We then outline the conceptual problems involved inproducing cataloguing codes and investigate their development in theEnglish-speaking world to date. The perspective is then widened andcataloguing codes used in Europe are discussed, including the issuesinvolved in implementing codes produced by the English-speaking commu-nity by non-English-speaking countries in Europe. The current state of playforms the conclusion, which proposes harbingers of a coming change withinthe latest cataloguing code developments ‘Resource Description and Access’(RDA, 2011). The chapter is based on an extensive literature review whichwas enhanced by data from an email survey. Subject analysis and access isnot be covered in this chapter, only descriptive cataloguing.

4.2. Background to Cataloguing

It is assumed some readers will be unfamiliar with the details of cataloguing.The term ‘cataloguing code’ has already been used in the introduction abovewithout definition. A ‘catalogue’ has been defined by Arlene Taylor as:

an organized set of bibliographic records that represent the holdings of a

particular collection and/or resources accessible in a particular location. (2006)

The ‘Europeanisation’ of Cataloguing Codes 69

Materials in a collection may be more than just locally held books andserials — Internet resources or resources in other collections might beaggregated within a catalogue, for example. Catalogues perform two roles,one being an inventory of owned resources, the other being a deviceallowing contained resources, or externally referenced resources, to bediscovered and used. The latter function is supported by an OPAC (onlinepublic access catalogue).

Therefore, a ‘cataloguing code’ has to provide procedures, usually rulesof the form ify theny, which both identify and describe for retrieval eachitem in a collection according to its explicit data characteristics in a specifiedset of features (author, title, etc.). The record for an item can be used as asurrogate for that item in a variety of applications, for example in a nationalbibliography or encoded as machine-readable metadata in the header of aweb page associated with that item in some way. Records are also used forthe generation of ‘access points’ (title, author, etc.) which can be used toretrieve records with the sought characteristic. ‘Uniform titles’ are alsocreated as special access points to materials that relate: for example, a novelmay be translated, made into a film, etc. and a uniform title will bringtogether all these incarnations, so that a person searching for oneincarnation will be alerted to others.

A cataloguing code will also contain rules for creating ‘authorityrecords’ — these are names of authors, places of publication, etc., whichmay vary in their expression in records but which still indicate the samepiece of data, or which look identical but do actually differ (e.g. two authorswith the same name). This imposition of consistency is vital for correctnessin identification and thus retrieval. Cataloguing standards, by their verynature are different from most standards. A technical standard, like that forMARC (Machine Readable Cataloguing), which is the standard forcomputerised bibliographic records, allows no deviations. It must be donethis way or not at all. However, cataloguing ‘standards’ are assumed to be‘followed’ using some level of interpretation of the sections of their rules.Not necessarily are all rules chosen. Most organisations that performoriginal cataloguing themselves, and many of those that simply re-usecatalogue records produced elsewhere, employ local rules interpretationsor policy statements.

With the provisos just mentioned, ideally cataloguing using the samerules should lead to ‘Universal Bibliographic Control’ (UBC) in which eachwork is catalogued once. Each country should catalogue its own imprints.National libraries are the institution that should produce nationalbibliographies. Legal deposit is the basic mechanism for creating a nationalbibliography. A national bibliography can serve as a publishing record anda source of bibliographic records. MARC forms the technical means ofrecord transfer. Logically, it might be assumed that everyone would adopt

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one cataloguing code, since the benefits of using one code, in terms ofconsistency of record and authority formats, for all records producedanywhere, would be self-evident. However, circumstances, in terms ofdiffering national library and publishing traditions have served to dethronelogic. Change in rules though must be seen as the exception in cataloguing.Code revision must steer a path between radicalism and continuity lest italienates either opponents or supporters of the original. The latter need theirfear of change assuaged while the former may need to be reined in.

4.2.1. The Early Development of Cataloguing Codes

Cataloguing begins in Europe. The French cataloguing code of 1791(Hopkins, 1992) is notable for two reasons: it was the first nationalcataloguing code, and it was the first code to use card-based descriptions asthe output from cataloguing, with playing cards being re-purposed for therole! Its genesis was as a national catalogue of the holdings of variouslibraries confiscated during the French Revolution. It is generally acceptedthat the earliest important development in the conceptualisation ofcataloguing codes was the ‘Rules for the compilation of the catalogue ofthe printed books in the British Museum’ (Pannizi, 1841), created by thenaturalised Italian Anthony Panizzi. His ‘Rules’ is generally regarded as thefirst modern cataloguing code, as it is primarily a statement of principleswhich were to be followed rather than a list of cases. Panizzi regarded thecatalogue primarily as a finding aid and thus wrote rules to support usersearching. For example, authors who used pseudonyms were to be foundunder those rather than their real names. Panizzi also constructed headingsto form access points where he thought readers might want them: forexample all universities and royal societies were entered under ‘Academies’.Another early cataloguing code creator was the American Charles A.Cutter, librarian at the Boston Athenaeum, whose ‘Rules for a dictionarycatalog’ (Cutter, 1904) also grouped publications by type or provenancewhere he considered they would serve the catalogue searcher, like Panizzi.

4.2.2. The Anglo-American Cataloguing Tradition

The work of Pannizi and Cutter fed into a long period of collaborationbetween the American Library Association (ALA) and the (British) LibraryAssociation (LA). Both countries shared a common interest in cataloguing,but as well both shared a language and print culture, both had had an earlyindustrial/commercial revolution, and both had expanded university and

The ‘Europeanisation’ of Cataloguing Codes 71

technological education and established a free public library system. Thus,both had a pressing need for better cataloguing.

The modern era of Committee-produced codes began in 1901 after theLibrary of Congress began a printed card service, selling its catalogue recordcards to large academic libraries. Melvil Dewey, also a pioneer ofclassification among other things, was instrumental in establishing formalco-operation between the respective ALA and LA committees on catalo-guing, and after a series of meetings over seven years, the first ‘Joint code’was approved in 1908. Given the substantial similarities in culture betweenthe two countries, it was remarkable that of the 174 rules there was stilldisagreement on 11, and that was enough to lead to separate British andAmerican texts! Nonetheless, this represented an important stage incodification, since it set in train the collaboration that would see theprincipal producers of English-language cataloguing data followed almostthe same code. Over time this code was criticised for omissions and revisedand expanded sets of rules were published in 1941 and then again in 1949,the Second World War creating the hiatus. However, these revisions simplyadded more and more special rules for different materials and cases. Inreaction, a move towards a much slimmer set of rules based on genericprinciples was led by Seymour Lubetzky, a cataloguing advisor at theLibrary of Congress, who first produced a critique of the 1949 code(Lubetzky, 1953) and later a draft of a code of rules based on his ideas(Lubetzky, 1960).

The ALA and LA Catalog Code Revision Committees began work toproduce a new Anglo-American code. Following Lubetzky, they decidedthat the entry for a work was to be based on the statements that appear onthe title page or any part of a work that is used as its substitute. Cataloguingby types of authorship (e.g. single person author) would replace that bytypes of work. Choice of main entry should be under main author if onecould be determined, else under title. Other authors’ names became addedentries. Rules for form of name specified that most commonly used by theperson (or corporate body) rather than the previous requirement for full ofofficial form of name. The same usage principle was used to arrive at formof name, if the same person (or corporate body) used different names. Thisallowed authors to be represented by pen names, for example. Finally, theserules applied to all types of publication, so type of work did not have to bedecided first, as it was with previous rules.

The Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules (AACR1) were finalised andadopted in 1967. However, there were two versions, one British, oneAmerican. In the latter, certain corporate bodies were entered in theprevious way under place as in the old rules. These exemptions wererequested by the Association of Research Libraries, whose members wereworried about the cost of manually updating past records. The onset of

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automation would give more leeway to revising rules, in that existing files ofpast records, entries and authority files could be more easily updated.

4.2.3. The Origins of International Cataloguing Standards

Librarianship as a profession has always been global. The InternationalFederation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), founded in1927 in Scotland, had, by 1974, over 600 members. From IFLA’s member-ship came the attendees from over 50 countries at the pivotal InternationalConference on Cataloguing Principles, held in Paris in 1961. At this Confer-ence, a statement of agreed cataloguing principles, the ‘Paris Principles’,descended from Lubetzky’s ideas, was adopted, and the participants agreedto produce codes for their respective countries based on his ideas (Inter-national Conference on Cataloguing Principles, 1963).

In 1969, an International Meeting of Cataloguing Experts was held underthe auspices of IFLA in Copenhagen: the outcome was the InternationalStandard Bibliographic Description for Monographs or ISBD(M). Thisspecified the elements in a description of bibliographic items and certainnon-book materials held in libraries, their order and their presentation, bymeans of specific punctuation. The first draft of the ISBD standard emergedin 1971. After this date it was extended to media types beyond the book —antiquarian items, computer files, cartographic materials, non-bookmaterials, printed music and serials. The various ISBDs for these materialtypes defined mandatory and optional data elements and formatted the itemrecords in such a way that it was possible to recognise each data elementwithout being able to understand its language. To maintain consistencybetween the different material types each ISBD applied to, ISBD(G) — with‘G’ meaning general— was developed in 1975 to serve as a core template forthe specialised ISBDs.

IFLA’s development of the ISBD’s has proven to be its most successfulstandard setting activity yet standards setting was difficult to establish in avoluntary international organisation (Holley, 1996). Meetings aboutstandards generated extra work on top of the workload from participant’s‘day jobs’. Meetings were annual, each in a different location, that wouldalways prove costly and difficult to get to for some attendees. Since English,and sometimes French, were IFLA’s working languages and English was theofficial language of IFLA publications, this typically meant that the writingactivities fell on the cadre of English speakers. All these factors contributedto a high turnover of the membership of committees, which then lead to theadditional burden of continually having to ‘train’ new members. Notsurprisingly, standards development took time. The process used to decideon the final standard was unanimity rather than majority voting. This was to

The ‘Europeanisation’ of Cataloguing Codes 73

keep all on board with decisions but by risking a comprise solution thatmight not be the best one. Finally, it was up to Committee members, usingtheir personal authority, to progress IFLA’s standards in their respectivecountries.

4.2.4. The Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, Second Edition (AACR2)

An alternative standards development model is the Joint SteeringCommittee (JSC) for Revision of AACR which was established in 1974. Itwas originally composed of representatives from the professional libraryassociations and the national libraries of the United States, the UnitedKingdom and Canada. An Australian representative joined from 1981. Itstask was to both generate and invite proposals for rules changes from itsconstituents and then initiate the process of debate and either adoption orrejection or asking for redrafting and re-submission of proposals. It carriedout these tasks continually, rather than only meeting when required. It wasfunded from sales of the cataloguing standards it developed, the publishingoperation being managed by the Committee of Principals (CoP). Byinvolving national libraries, the implementation of new rules systems couldbe made through changes to national bibliographies, which would obligeother libraries to follow.

An early JSC decision was to apply the International Standard forBibliographic Description (ISBD) to AACR1. Under the JSC’s auspices, thesecond edition of the Anglo-American cataloguing rules (AACR2) waspublished in 1978. In it, the American and British versions of AACR1 werefinally reconciled. The importance of description was recognised by placingits rules in the general first section with rules for access points and variousmedia formats in the second and succeeding chapters. Media were classed byGeneral Material Descriptions (GMDs). This was to both minimise thenumber of rules that cataloguers would need to use most often (those forgeneral description), and give individual cataloguers leeway to makedecisions appropriate to the needs of their perceived users, relating tomaterial types. Three levels, in terms of the depth of the description andaccess points, were also defined, again to give cataloguers a choice of theappropriate level to meet user needs. Yet bibliographic record sharing wouldstill be possible as the basic level description would be acceptable as anexchangeable record.

There were other more specific changes. A corporate body could nolonger be an author but instead had applicable works listed under theiruniform entry. Rules for recording their names also emphasised more theirusage as guiding their entries. Geographic names for countries worked likeUS state/place names. The implementation of AACR2 was postponed twice

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to 2 January 1981. As with AACR1, this was because many libraries still didnot have automated catalogues, which meant that rules changes had to bemade by hand on cards.

The wide adoption of AACR1, by many English-speaking countries inAsia and Africa, had prepared the ground for acceptance of AACR2. As aresult, AACR2 was translated into fourteen languages (Arabic, BahasaMalaysia, Chinese, Danish, Finnish, French, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian,Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and Urdu), and also included moreforeign language examples and rules for entry of foreign names thanAACR1. It was adopted by non-English-speaking countries, for example inSingapore and Malaysia. Within Europe, Denmark, Finland, Norway andSweden all adopted AACR2, despite reservations about its corporate mainentry rules and other issues.

Denmark began using AACR2 in 1984 with some modifications. Itimplemented a more detailed 21.1B1, under which a corporate body is themain entry only if prominently named, not if it was associated with a confer-ence or exhibition. Rules for certain types of material were also changed. Forexample, accompanyingmaterials could serve as a chief source of informationfor cartographic materials if the materials themselves did not provide one.GMDs were also changed: for example ‘multi-media’ could only be used foritems containingmore than three types ofmedia, while itemswith two or threetypes would list them all, rather than just the predominant one. Finally, sinceuniform titles had been rarely used in the past, their use was restrictedto anonymous classics, recordings of classical music and printed music.

Like Denmark, Norway had problems with AACR2’s treatment ofcorporate main entry, and found issues with the rules for the recognition ofcorporate bodies in names. As well adding many Norwegian examples, theinstructions for numerical designations for serials in Chapter 12 were alteredto always include the numeric version, for clarity. Entries for ClassicalGreek and Latin names were to be given in those languages and not in thevernacular. More rules were added for Pakistani and Vietnamese names,because of their large immigrant communities in Norway. Finally, a rule wasadded to Chapter 23 for better handling of local place names in Norway.

Sweden also made a similar geographic naming amendment. A noteadded to Rule 1.0D allowed public libraries to catalogue a work of fictiononce, treating each more like a uniform heading than an individualpublication. The rules on the intellectual responsibility for laws werereplaced with two pared-down rules sections, simply stating that lawsemanating from a body should go under that body. Three changes weremade to fit in with local past practice. Rule 21.1C3 was re-written and Rule21.1B2 was ignored to enter serials under titles except in cases of personalauthorship. Rule 22.2C on variant pseudonyms was also re-written, to usethe form given on an item, as this had been a recent local implementationnot long before AACR2 had appeared. Finally, rule 25.25 was also changed

The ‘Europeanisation’ of Cataloguing Codes 75

for music uniform titles allow past practice of recording them in bothSwedish and Danish.

The main advantage that these Nordic countries got from using AACR2was that they could get bibliographic records from either the British Libraryor the Library of Congress. Since many of the publications in their librariesoriginated from English-language publishers, using AACR2 for localpublications made sense. There was less of a case for adopting AACR2 incountries with a strong national publishing industry and the appearance ofEnglish-language items in translation only.

Another impediment to adoption by some European countries was theirunique cataloguing traditions. For example, the German cataloguing rules,RAK (Reglen fur die Alphabetische Katalogisierung) were different inconception to AACR2. RAK was not a general set of rules, but ratherconcrete instructions on how to deal with as large a number of problems aspossible, driven by a defined set of cataloguing tasks. Tasks were not presentin AACR2. Linked to these tasks, RAK detailed the function andimportance of authority files while AACR2 did not. RAK was careful todefine the terms used within rules and this was another difference withACCR2. As with the Nordic countries, there were differences betweenAACR2 and RAK in relation to main entry under a corporate body. InRAK a main entry under a corporate body was only created if the work hadno personal author, the name of the corporate body occurred in the titleproper or the title proper consisted only of a generic term (e.g. annualreport, proceedings, etc.).

Finally, it should be noted that not all applications of AACR2 in English-speaking countries were without problems. In Kenya, for example, there werelocal problems as AACR2’s Chapter 22 lacked instructions for enteringAfrican names according to local practice. The Kenyan National Libraryentered African names in direct order under the first element of the name, soauthor ‘Chinua Achebe’ was this locally but became ‘Achebe Chinua’ in theBritish National Bibliography (BNB). Also, materials written in the locallanguage, Kiswahili, were difficult to describe using AACR2 as terms foredition, reprint, etc. were interchangeable inKiswahili and local bibliographictradition eschewed title pages. Thus, being ‘English-speaking’ was notenough: underlying cultural differences could also trip up a cataloguing code.

4.2.5. Resource Description and Access (RDA)

As well as culture, technology can affect cataloguing rules. Throughout thenineties, digital technology had drastically changed the nature of ‘informa-tion’ in all forms. It united text, pictures, sound and vision in a commonstorage medium and provided tools to create, edit, merge, transform, moveand access files using a near-ubiquitous global network. The global network

76 Alan Poulter

created a whole new set of cataloguing problems, revolving around dealingwith this sea-change in the nature of publication and communication. Evensomething as straightforward as a website was difficult to catalogue inAACR2. There was also a realisation that the output from a set of rulesshould be structured in a way that was more amenable to storage in, andprocessing by, a machine.

RDA, the successor to AACR2, grew out of the International Conferenceon the Principles and Future Development of AACR2, 1997, held inToronto. It produced two recommendations:

pursue the recommendation that a data modelling technique be used to

provide a logical analysis of the principles and structures of AACR2y. solicit

a proposal to revise Rule 0.24 to advance the discussion on the primacy of

intellectual content over physical format. (The Principles and Future

Development of AACR, 1998)

In 2001 the ALA’s Committee on Cataloguing: Description and Access(CC:DA) prepared an amendment to AACR2 rule 0.24 instructing thecataloguer to ‘bring out all aspects of the item being described, including itscontent, its carrier, its type of publication, its bibliographic relationshipsand whether it was published or unpublished’.

In April 2004, the CoP and the JSC decided that the level of change wasno longer at the amendment level and was instead a comprehensive revisionof AACR2. In April 2005, the CoP and the JSC decided that AACR2’sstructure should be abandoned and an alignment with two abstract modelsof publication, both developed by IFLA, the Functional Requirements ofBibliographic Records (FRBR) and the Functional Requirements forAuthority Data (FRAD) be used as the basis for the new cataloguingrules: their name was changed to RDA to indicate this fundamental shift.The name change also signalled a move towards international application asRDA was now going to be a set of rules based on international standards.RDA 0.2 states that ‘the RDA element set is compatible with ISBD(International Standard Bibliographic Description), MARC21 and DublinCoreyRDA also conforms to the RDA/ONIX Framework for ResourceCategorization’. RDA also permits (Rule 0.12) where appropriate, the use ofISO standards (e.g. ISO 15924 for recording language scripts).

FRBR and FRAD are abstract models that were explicitly derived tomeet user needs. Adopting these models is RDA’s biggest departure fromAACR2, since that code lacked any theoretical underpinning, but rather hadevolved through custom and practice. As noted above, media formats hadbecome much more complex since the arrival of the digital revolution soRDA did not base rules on them. However, since the ‘custom and practice’in AACR2 behind concepts like author, title, etc., still apply, there is a carry-over of these rules into RDA.

The ‘Europeanisation’ of Cataloguing Codes 77

FRBR and FRAD are entity-relationship (ER) models. An ‘entity’ is athing which is capable of an independent existence and which can beuniquely identified. Every entity must have a minimal set of uniquelyidentifying attributes, which is called the entity’s primary key. A ‘relation-ship’ expresses how entities are related to one another. Entities andrelationships can both have attributes. While entities and attributes can bedescribed as text, ER diagrams are far more effective in showing the totalityand meanings of a set of entities, relationships and attributes. The intentionin using ER modelling is to make explicit what is being described and howthe elements of the model relate. An ER model is the first step in databasedesign, so an ER model for bibliographic data makes that data efficient tostore, process and retrieve from databases.

The entities in FRBR are split into three Groups. Group 1 is for‘intellectual products’ and there are four entities for these: Works,Expressions, Manifestations and Items (WEMI). The ‘Work’ entity is adistinct intellectual creation, for example Daniel Defoe has the idea of astory about a man stranded on an island. The ‘Expression’ entity is therealisation of a work in some form (a language, sound, etc.). Defoe thinksof the story in English but it can be realised in other languages and media.The ‘Manifestation’ entity is the embodiment of an expression of a work,for example the first edition in English, a later English version in thePenguin Classics, etc. The ‘Item’ entity is a single physical copy of amanifestation, for example an owned copy of the Penguin Classic. UsingER relationships, a work can have many expressions, each expression canhave many manifestations and each item can only come from onemanifestation. Generally, most works will have one expression and onemanifestation of that expression. Manifestations of the same expressionmay have identical content but will vary in some other detail, for examplepublication date. Manifestations of different expressions equate roughly toeditions.

Group 2 entities are those responsible for intellectual/artistic content,that is Persons, Corporate bodies, and Families, while Group 3 entitiescould represent subjects: Concepts, Objects, Places and Events as well as allentities in Groups 1 and 2. Thus, a place can be the subject of a travel guide,a person can be the subject of a biography and a poem can be the subject ofa critical text.

The structure of RDA is determined by FRBR. The initial ‘general’chapter and the succeeding ‘media’ chapters in AACR2 are gone in RDA. Inits place is a set of chapters based around ‘works’, ‘expressions’,‘manifestations’ and ‘items’. Thus:

Section 1: Recording attributes of manifestation and itemSection 2: Recording attributes of work and expression

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and so on. This follows the logical structure imposed by FRBR, but thosenew to FRBR (and especially cataloguers with many years experience withAACR2) might take some time to get familiar with it. Also, FRBR usesartificial terms as existing ones, for example edition, are ambiguous. This isboth a great strength of FRBR but also a possible weakness, in that ‘near’understandable terms may be more confusing than completely artificialones.

It was stated earlier that FRBR was designed to support user tasks. Itdoes this by defining a set of user tasks:

Find: find entities that match a needIdentify: confirm that entities match a need and be able to distinguishthemSelect: find the entity most appropriateObtain: get access to the required entity

and then explicitly highlighting particular attributes of WEMI entities asbeing required for one or more of the above tasks.

As mentioned previously, AACR2 could not deal with new types ofmaterial. AACR2 forced the choice of a predominant part as type, RDAdoes not. RDA provides three sets of elements: Content type, Media typeand Carrier type, which are used in combination. There are controlledvocabularies for all three, jointly developed by the JSC, Tom Delsey (theCoP-appointed RDA Editor) and the maintainers of ONIX, a schema usedin the publishing industry. Content type is an expression-level attribute, andit details how content is expressed and through which sense the content isperceived, for example text, two-dimensional moving image, spoken word,still image, computer program, sound, performed music, etc. Media typedistinguishes manifestations and reflects the type of intermediation devicerequired to run, view or hear the content, for example audio, computer,video. The term ‘Unmediated’ is used to indicate when no intermediationdevice is needed and, does not need to be shown to the user but can beentered for completeness. Media types are there to help users, for example‘sound’ finds all audio resources regardless of carrier. Carrier type is amanifestation-level attribute and is a categorisation of the format andhousing of a carrier and the specific device required to access the content, forexample audiocassette, computer disc, microfilm roll, videocassette, etc.

Unlike preceding codes, RDA is predominantly delivered via an onlineresource (the ToolKit). Printed and other media forms are secondary. InJuly 2011, the decision was announced by the Library of Congress, theNational Library of Medicine and the National Agricultural Library toadopt after conducting trials. The decision to adopt RDA though carriesriders on certain perceived issues to be resolved, related to rules readability,

The ‘Europeanisation’ of Cataloguing Codes 79

online delivery issues of the RDA Toolkit and a business case outlining costsand benefits of adoption. It appears that, allowing for these issues to beanswered, RDA will begin adoption in 2013.

Finally, another novel feature of RDA is that it tries to reach out tocommunities around Dublin Core in particular and metadata in general.RDA can function as a set of rules to open up library data, by means ofderived Resource Description Format (RDF) ‘triples’, logical statements(subject–predicate–object expressions), expressed in Extensible MarkupLanguage (XML), which can embed meaning (like identifying an author) ina web page. This is termed ‘linked data’ as the data enables semanticretrieval. Creating the opportunity to embed in web metadata derived fromcataloguing data, to enable their structured retrieval, would realise the‘Semantic’ Web, long the dream of Sir Tim Berners Lee.

4.3. RDA and Europe

As a new approach to cataloguing the development of RDA has been ofgreat interest throughout Europe. This was shown by the formation ofEURIG, the European RDA Interest Group, which was mooted during theAmerican Library Association Midwinter Meeting in Boston, August 2009and finally agreed during the 75th IFLA Conference in Milan. EURIG’sfirst event, ‘RDA in Europe: Making it happen! EURIG-JSC seminar onRDA’ took place in July 2010, at the Royal Library in Copenhagen.Representatives from national libraries from all over Europe gave theirviews on RDA. Some saw it as a modern cataloguing code that usedinternational standards to good effect. The two presentations fromGermany,Frodl (2010) and Gompel (2010), were for adopting RDA — they saw it as apotential international code that followed international standards. AGermantranslation was being undertaken. They were keen on its hooks into metadatainitiatives like Dublin Core. The Finnish presentation also reported theirintent to translate RDA with a view to adoption (Haapamaki, 2010). Theywere particularly interested in a better OPAC capacity from using RDA/FRBR. Sweden was also keen to adopt RDA.

Many were waiting for translations into their national languages, forexample Norway, although they were using AACR2. The representativefrom the National Library of Spain said that in 2008 it had been decided usethe consolidated ISBD for description but not to update the existing Spanishcataloguing rules, so they would be examining RDA closely after theappearance of a Spanish translation (Agusti, 2010). Portugal was in a similarsituation. Finally there was opposition. The French representatives pointedout that RDA did not use all the available ISO standards and that it was

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somewhat loosely based on IFLA standards. It was still held to be ‘Anglo-Saxon’ in some areas — in the treatment of place, performers and legalworks (Leresche & Bourdo, 2010).

4.4. Email Questionnaire

To gauge the current state of European interest in RDA, an email surveywas performed in August 2011, of all the European members of the StandingCommittee of the Cataloguing Section of the International Federation ofLibrary Associations (IFLA), and all the European speakers at the ‘RDA inEurope: Making it happen!’ conference. This sample was chosen as beingthose individuals who would be most able to give a view from Europe oncurrent cataloguing developments. Each person was asked the following twoquestions:

Question 1. Does RDA offer the potential to be a cataloguing code thatcould be adopted by countries in Europe?

Question 2. What cataloguing code do you use now, and what would beneeded to make you move to a new code?

Each participant was also asked to suggest other potential respondents.Nine replies were received in total from seven European countries. Allreplies were positive to the idea of RDA being a potential shared code withinEurope but most pointed out issues. One common concern was:

I think it has the potential to be a cataloging code that can be adopted by

countries in Europe, though when an European country adopt it, it surely loses

some of its traditional rules, schemes and life conception.

Two responders that experience of AACR2 was felt to be a perquisite ofsuccessful implementation of RDA:

RDA has that potential but, in my opinion, that potential will easier became a

reality in countries with the prior experience of usage of AACR (of course,

Germany is the great exception).

Its internalisation in terms of standards adoption was also highlighted bypositively three responders:

This said, Denmark would undoubtedly shift to RDA (when implemented),

because of internationalisation (e.g. WorldCat) and cooperation needs —

exchange of records.

The ‘Europeanisation’ of Cataloguing Codes 81

Yet two responders proposed that RDA was not international enough:

The differences with ISBD: the majority of the catalogues in the world have

the descriptive information according to the ISBD.

The cost of RDA itself and the hidden costs of the changeover wereinhibitors for three responders:

Changing to the online system will be a hard process. An exhaustive AACR2-

RDA mapping of rules is needed to counteract this inconvenience. There

would need to be a print version of the code that wasn’t just a printout of the

electronic version.

There was a suggestion that RDA would better be produced by IFLA:

RDA is created by the JSC for Development of RDA, an international body

but without worldwide representation. Catalogue managers and cataloguers

are frightened of losing control without the opportunity of defending their

cultures and their points of view and only having to accept the Anglo-

American view and culture. If RDA were presented for revision and approval

of IFLA, it might be different. Many rules should be changed, deleted, or with

different options presented according to the needs of different cultures.

And there was a suggestion by three responders that the best way toremove the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ bias was to open up the development process:

RDA is intended to be a standard for international use. Naturally, there are a

couple of rules that testify the Anglo-American thinking and conditions,

respectively. However, that may be owned to the fact that they developed the

rules. Had some German or Finnish or other nation’s librarians developed the

code, probably it reflected more of their thinking. It is therefore important that

the European libraries will have at least one voice in the Joint Steering

Committee for Development of RDA to bring in their needs and concerns, and

help to further develop the standard. EURIG, the European RDA Interest

Group could be the organization representing the European needs there.

Finally one responder felt that RDA did not go as far as it could inrestructuring cataloguing codes around solid models and minimal, clearinstructions:

RDA can be adopted in Europe. The primary weaknesses of RDA are the

same for everybody: That RDA do not provide a sufficient change to

cataloguing (low modernity); and that RDA in its current form is very hard to

handle and understand (low usability).

82 Alan Poulter

4.5. Conclusion

From its beginnings in the French Revolution, cataloguing has been used asa means both for creating structured listings of library holdings, but alsomaking of making records from those listings usable by other libraries. Thusthere is an inbuilt imperative need for a standard set of rules. Two generalproblems affect changes to cataloguing rules standards. The first is how tocreate a minimal set of rules which will adequately describe a maximal set ofitems. This is both an intellectual problem and a practical one. The practicalproblem is who will do the ‘devising’ and how will the outcome beimplemented? The age of individuals as a source of rules is long gone. Only ahand-picked, dedicated, well-funded group can possess the breadth ofknowledge and experience required.

The second general problem is inbuilt resistance to change. Since theearly days though, the spread and take up of cataloguing rules and changesto those rules, as detailed in this chapter, have accustomed cataloguers tochange:

it appears likely that any opposition to [a new] code will be based on the cost of

its implementation rather than its qualityyMany libraries are in cataloguing

cooperatives most of which have large files that will need alterationyThe

number of libraries affected now [by AACR2] is far bigger than it was in 1967,

and increasing inter-dependence works against both unilateral acceptance or

rejection of a new code, even for national libraries. (Gredley, 1980)

Successful implementation of new or revised codes needs to be led fromthe top, typically by one or more national libraries. IFLA and its consensusapproach would never be effective in this role. The JSC/CoP combination,splitting the development and business aspects of developing new codes, andinvolving national libraries as implementers, has proven a very effectiveagent of cataloguing change.

Yet the JSC can be seen as the successor of the old Anglo-Americancataloguing tradition, which took almost 80 years to reach a consensusstandard, AACR2, working within a closely shared cultural framework.Even in an age without jet travel, it was always more fruitful to cross theAtlantic to discuss cataloguing rules, than to discuss cataloguing rules withnearby European countries. The ‘Anglo-American’ tradition though, asregarding JSC membership, may be coming to an end. A recent paper atIFLA 2011 announced the opening up of JSC membership to those outsidethe English-speaking world, as long as they participated in English (Brazier,2011). Therefore, it is likely that one or more European countries mayprovide representatives on JSC in the near future.

The ‘Europeanisation’ of Cataloguing Codes 83

Tom Delsey, one of the developers of RDA, has outlined different ‘strata’in cataloguing codes as:

at the international level, differences in language and cultural context tend to

work against the straight transfer of a record from one country to another

without modification. At the national level, differences in audience and

purpose for various catalogues will dictate some degree of modification to the

local context. And because all catalogues carry within them an historical

accumulation of past practices, there will always need to be some degree of

reconciliation (1989).

Being based on IFLA’s FRBR, RDA can claim that its core model isinternational. The sort of multi-lingual, multi-cultural code that will berequired can be seen in an embryonic form in RDA, but it might need to godeeper to deal with the sort of issues that one respondent to the email surveyraised:

I do not want to go into the issues of culture and cultural specificities (heritage),

and the need to preserve them (regardless of what is thought sometimes as

advanced culture over less or un(der)developed cultures), however, a specific

culture expresses itself in a wide variety of ways, one of them being ‘cataloguing

rules’. Without the language, there is no identity of the people.

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