Resource Description & Access (RDA) is intended to provide a flexible and extensible framework that can accommodate all types of content and media within rapidly evolving digital environments while also maintaining compatibility with the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2nd edition (AACR2). The cataloging community is grappling with practical issues in navigating the transition from AACR2 to RDA; there is a definite need to evaluate major subject areas and broader themes in information organization under the new RDA paradigm. This article aims to accomplish this task through a thorough and critical review of the emerging RDA literature published from 2005 to 2011. The review mostly concerns key areas of difference between RDA and AACR2, the relationship of the new cataloging code to metadata standards, the impact on encoding standards such as Machine-Readable Cataloging (MARC), end user considerations, and practitioners' views on RDA implementation and training. Future research will require more in-depth studies of RDA's expected benefits and the manner in which the new cataloging code will improve resource retrieval and bibliographic control for users and catalogers alike over AACR2. The question as to how the cataloging community can best move forward to the post-AACR2/MARC environment must be addressed carefully so as to chart the future of bibliographic control in the evolving environment of information production, management, and use.

RDA: Resource description & access—a survey of the current state of the art

As resources have become ever more complicated in a digital world, it is evident that cataloging practices and the metadata standards we use to guide these practices are becoming more constraining. Recent developments within the library community can have a significant impact on serials cataloging and may help improve information retrieval for the end user. While the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) holds some promise for improving the representation of serials, linked data principles may further transform the way in which resources and the relationships between them are captured and presented to our users. By taking description out of the current record constraints, serials librarians will better be able to express the relationships between multiple versions of the same publication, and how a particular journal has changed over time. The linked data model also opens up many opportunities for the provision of value-added content to bibliographic descriptions.

From Record-Bound to Boundless: FRBR, Linked Data, and New Possibilities for Serials Cataloging

This article proposes a new way of cataloging serials using linked data and Resource Description Framework (RDF), as well as how the concepts of Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) can be expanded to apply to journal content at both the journal level and the article level, all with an eye toward ease of access and understanding for users.

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Serials, FRBR, and Library Linked Data: A Way Forward

This article proposes a new way of cataloging serials using linked data and Resource Description Framework (RDF), as well as how the concepts of Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) can be expanded to apply to journal content at both the journal level and the article level, all with an eye toward ease of access and understanding for users. This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Journal of Library Metadata, September 2012, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/19386389.2012.699834

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Serials, FRBR, and Library Linked Data: A Way Forward - eScholarship

The library catalog as a catalog of works was an infectious idea, which together with research led to reconceptualization in the form of the FRBR conceptual model. Two categories of lacunae emerge—the expression entity, and gaps in the model such as aggregates and dynamic documents. Evidence needed to extend the FRBR model is available in contemporary research on instantiation. The challenge for the bibliographic community is to begin to think of FRBR as a form of knowledge organization system, adding a final dimension to classification. The articles in the present special issue offer a compendium of the promise of the FRBR model.

Be Careful What You Wish For: FRBR, Some Lacunae, A Review

Current cataloging practices are insufficient to the task of providing access to serial content. The presenters acknowledge that RDA (Resource Description and Access), FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records) and the CONSER (Cooperative Online Serials) standard record will improve libraries' ability to respond to the exponential increase in information resources brought about by the Internet but feel that more may be done. Adams and Santamauro propose to apply the concepts of FRBR to serials cataloging and database design, in addition to the user interface, thereby saving time in cataloging and providing the user with cleaner records.

Britta Santamauro

Papers

Successive Entry, Latest Entry, or None of the Above? How the MARC21 Format, FRBR and the Concept of a Work Could Revitalize Serials Management