Morning all,
Hope you enjoyed the 2 days of discussion.
The 2nd day of the eforum was mostly looking at internal policy.
In terms of writing internal policies, some said that they had looked at what others had already done and compared policies from elsewhere. In this respect, coming to adoption later than other libraries meant they could learn from what had already been written. A couple of people noted there had been some moves amongst some libraries to try to standardise policy, particularly through RLUK, although this was still at an early stage.
Many expressed gratitude that, as with training documentation, there had been a lot of willingness amongst cataloguers to share what they had written.
Related to broad policy were individual issues such as hybrid records and the extent to which cataloguer judgement should be allowed. With hybrid records, whilst some were actively making changes to add RDA elements into AACR2 records, others weren’t (though they would continue to accept hybrid records in imports).
Several people commented that although derived (imported) records may not correspond to their own application of RDA, they would not amend them unless data was incorrect. Additionally, some noted that they had to add 260 fields to RDA records they were deriving because their systems had not yet been configured to accept the 264 field.
As for cataloguer judgement and consistency of application, some places had established policies for the main elements but accepted they couldn’t consider everything and would make decisions on other aspects as they arose.
There was some debate about the issue of large numbers of additional authors and the resultant effect on access points (and authority creation where applicable). Some have set limits of 5 or 10 before their addition would be queried, whereas one place had found a record requiring up to 100 additional points!
The issue of related manifestations and expressions led into a discussion regarding linking print and electronic copies of the same text, with some places actively linking them, whereas others have that capability already built into their front-end system.
The need to review policies after implementation was also raised, some again, have built this into their planning, whilst others are going to consider it along with their regular reviews. Many cited RDA as being a positive reason to critically examine what they do, and revise key documentation, along with address some wider related topics such as the catalogue display.
The extent to which RDA impacted on levels of productivity was also debated. Many noted that the training, planning and configuration did take some time. The impact on productivity in terms of cataloguing items was felt to lessen as people became more familiar with the process. Discussion was perhaps slower at this point because fewer participants have actually implemented RDA in full.
Rounding off the day, the discussion turned to positives and negatives of RDA. Those who had moved (or were in the process of moving) said that the chance to ‘futureproof’ records had been positive, as had the opportunity to engage with colleagues both internal and external to their immediate department.
As a side note, there were those who said they had followed the discussion with interest and it had given them a lot to think about for their own planning. The sharing of links and resources in this forum has hopefully added to what was said in the emails.
Once again, thanks to all who took part, whether commenting or just reading.
Katrina
Katrina Clifford
Senior Information Advisor (Bibliographic and Metadata)
Penrhyn Road LRC
Kingston University
Kingston-upon-Thames
KT1 2EE
020 8417 2118
[log in to unmask]
-------------------------------
Kingston University Research Repository -
visit http://eprints.kingston.ac.uk