Jim Weinheimer wrote: > As one of those veteran catalogers, I honestly do not see how the changes in > RDA have a lot of potential. Which changes do you have in mind? The > abbreviations? The changes in the headings of the Bible? The lack of the $b > in titles?
The questions above indicate that the questioner is missing the point of RDA entirely. Abbreviations could be limited or eliminated entirely by a very simple amendment to AACR2. Likewise changes to Bible headings. The "lack of the $b in titles" seems to be talking about "other title information", which is not really a change from AACR2 in that it is already optional at the first level of description (1.0D1). No, RDA is an entire reconceptualization of bibliographic metadata. It is the definition of discrete pieces of metadata, along with guidelines for determining the values for such. *These* are the changes that have a lot of potential. Changes that aren't going to be seen directly by users, but instead are going to be seen (and used) by catalogers, systems administrators, analysts, designers. The changes that those "background" people encounter are going to enable monumental changes in how users are able to interface with the metadata. Kevin M. Randall Principal Serials Cataloger Bibliographic Services Dept. Northwestern University Library 1970 Campus Drive Evanston, IL 60208-2300 email: k...@northwestern.edu phone: (847) 491-2939 fax: (847) 491-4345
