RDA: The Future of Library Cataloguing and Resource Description

For decades, library catalogues were built on rules designed for the age of the card catalogue. Then the internet arrived, and with it came e-books, audiobooks, streaming media, digital archives, and databases that no print-era rulebook had imagined. Resource Description and Access (RDA) was created to answer this challenge. It is the cataloguing standard built for the digital world, and it is steadily replacing the system that guided cataloguers for nearly half a century. This post explains what RDA is, what makes it different, how it improves library catalogues, and how it connects to the conceptual model known as FRBR.

What is RDA? 🔗

RDA, or Resource Description and Access, is a standard for descriptive cataloguing that provides instructions and guidelines for recording bibliographic data about information resources. It is the successor to the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, second edition (AACR2), the standard that libraries had relied on since the late 1970s. RDA was officially released on 23 June 2010 as an online product called the RDA Toolkit, published jointly by library associations in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

The need for a new standard was widely accepted by the cataloguing community by the turn of the millennium. AACR2 was designed for creating card catalogue records of print materials, but the nature of library collections had changed dramatically. Libraries were now describing websites, digital files, multimedia, and resources that did not fit neatly into rules written for books. RDA was developed to handle all types of content and media held not only in libraries but also in museums, archives, and other cultural institutions.

From record creation to quality metadata 🔗

One of the most important shifts RDA introduced is philosophical. AACR2 focused on creating a complete catalogue record for each item. RDA shifts that focus away from record creation and toward creating quality metadata that can be easily shared, reused, and connected. In other words, RDA does not just describe a book sitting on a shelf. It produces data designed to work across catalogues, databases, and the wider web.

RDA also builds on the strengths of AACR2 rather than discarding everything. Records created using RDA remain compatible with existing catalogue records, so libraries did not have to rebuild their entire catalogues overnight. This continuity made the transition manageable for institutions worldwide, including those in India that were already operating large MARC-based catalogues.

Key features of RDA 🔗

RDA differs from its predecessor in several practical ways that catalogers notice immediately, as well as in deeper structural ways that affect how data behaves.

Designed for the digital and online world 🔗

RDA is delivered primarily as an online toolkit rather than a printed rulebook. More importantly, the metadata created under RDA is structured for user-focused linked data applications. This means RDA data is compatible with existing online catalogues while also being adaptable to new and emerging database structures. The standard was built with the assumption that catalogue data will live online and interact with other data, not sit in isolation.

Flexible data structures 🔗

RDA is a content standard, not an encoding format. This is an important distinction. RDA tells cataloguers what information to record and how to formulate it, but it does not dictate how that data must be stored or displayed. This separation makes RDA flexible. The same RDA data can be carried in MARC 21 records today and migrated into newer formats like BIBFRAME, the linked data model developed by the Library of Congress as a potential successor to MARC. Because RDA is not tied to a single encoding system, it can adapt as technology evolves.

Practical changes for cataloguers 🔗

RDA introduced concrete changes in everyday cataloguing practice. Among the most notable is the elimination of Latin abbreviations that AACR2 used heavily. Instead of cryptic shorthand, RDA favours full terms that are clearer to users and easier for machines to process. RDA also places much greater emphasis on identifying and recording the relationships between different versions of a work, which is where its connection to the FRBR model becomes central.

Alignment with international models 🔗

The organisation of RDA is based on international standards developed by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA). Crucially, RDA was decided to be based on the conceptual models FRBR and FRAD (Functional Requirements for Authority Data). These models give special attention to digital resources and allow for better efficiency in organisations that use emerging database technologies. This international grounding is what makes RDA suitable for libraries across different countries and languages.

How RDA enhances library cataloguing 🔗

The benefits of RDA become clear when we look at how catalogue data is created, shared, and discovered.

Standardised, shareable metadata 🔗

Standardisation is the foundation of effective cataloguing. When cataloguers follow a common standard, they produce uniform bibliographic records that can be easily understood and shared among libraries, regardless of location or language. This consistency supports reliable access points and interoperability across library systems. For a country with thousands of libraries and a strong tradition of cooperative cataloguing, this consistency directly reduces duplicated effort.

Studies of cataloguing professionals point to real, measurable benefits. Research into the adoption of newer standards found perceived benefits in time savings and improved cataloguing efficiency, along with support for stronger standardised practices. When records are built well once, they can be reused many times.

Improved searchability and discovery 🔗

Because RDA records relationships explicitly, catalogues can group related resources together in ways that older flat records could not. A user searching for a novel can be shown its translations, audiobook editions, film adaptations, and reprints as connected results rather than as a confusing list of separate, unlinked entries. RDA is also considered a critical link between the library cataloguing community and the linked data paradigm of the wider internet. Well-structured RDA data can connect to external sources, breaking the silos that have traditionally isolated library catalogues from the rest of the web.

A bridge to the future 🔗

RDA prepares libraries for the transition beyond MARC. The shortcomings of MARC 21 as a description tool became more visible as RDA was implemented, which is part of why the Library of Congress developed BIBFRAME as a linked data alternative to MARC 21. RDA-compliant data is well positioned to move into this linked data environment. For libraries, this means today’s cataloguing investment continues to deliver value as systems modernise.

FRBR and RDA: the relationship explained 🔗

To understand RDA fully, you have to understand FRBR, because RDA is built on its foundations.

What FRBR is 🔗

FRBR stands for Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records. It is a conceptual entity-relationship model developed by IFLA and published in 1998. FRBR relates the user tasks of retrieval and access to the structure of catalogue data from the user’s point of view. It is important to be clear about what FRBR is not. FRBR is not itself a cataloguing code. There is no FRBR software. It is a way of thinking that guides how cataloguers conceptualise resources, subjects, and the people behind them.

FRBR defines four core user tasks that a good catalogue should support: to find, identify, select, and obtain the resources a user is looking for. Everything in the model serves these goals.

The WEMI hierarchy 🔗

The heart of FRBR is a group of entities known as WEMI, which stands for Work, Expression, Manifestation, and Item. These four entities, called Group 1 entities, represent the products of intellectual or artistic creation arranged in a hierarchy:

Work is the abstract intellectual or artistic creation itself. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, considered apart from any particular performance or printing, is a work. Expression is a specific intellectual realisation of that work, such as a particular translation, arrangement, or edited version. Manifestation is the physical embodiment of an expression, such as a particular published edition. Item is a single concrete copy of a manifestation, like the specific volume on your library shelf. The work sits at the top of this hierarchy as the most abstract level, while the item sits at the bottom as the entirely concrete level.

FRBR also defines two further groups. Group 2 entities are person, family, and corporate body, the parties responsible for creating or maintaining Group 1 entities. Group 3 entities are the subjects of works, including concepts, objects, events, and places.

How RDA integrates FRBR 🔗

RDA takes this conceptual model and turns it into working cataloguing instructions. The FRBR entities and elements translate into RDA as the data elements for bibliographic description and access, and as the relationships among those entities. In short, FRBR provides the theory and RDA provides the practice. RDA combines the FRBR conceptual model with established cataloguing principles to build a foundation for cataloguer judgement and better systems.

This is why an understanding of FRBR is essential to understanding and applying RDA. The structure of RDA itself reflects the model: its instructions are organised around recording the attributes of entities and the relationships between them. This is a clear break from AACR2, which focused largely on the physical manifestation, while the FRBR-based approach describes resources within a richer four-level structure.

From FRBR to the IFLA Library Reference Model 🔗

It is worth knowing that the conceptual foundation of RDA has continued to evolve, which matters for students studying the current standard. Over the years, IFLA produced several related models: FRBR for bibliographic records, FRAD for authority data, and FRSAD for subject authority data. In 2017, IFLA consolidated these three into a single, unified model called the IFLA Library Reference Model (LRM), which superseded the earlier FRBR family of models.

To align with this new model, the RDA Toolkit went through a major Restructure and Redesign Project, known as the 3R Project. The redesigned and current version became the official RDA standard on 15 December 2020. So while FRBR remains the model most commonly taught to explain RDA’s origins, learners should be aware that today’s official RDA is built on the consolidated IFLA LRM. The core ideas, especially the WEMI hierarchy and the focus on relationships, carry through into the new model.

What do you think? 🔗

As Indian libraries continue moving from print-era records toward linked data, do you think RDA and models like the IFLA LRM will make catalogues genuinely easier for ordinary users to navigate, or mainly more powerful behind the scenes for cataloguers? And if you were managing a library’s transition, would you prioritise retraining staff in RDA’s relationship-based thinking, or upgrading the technical systems that store and display the data first?

References

1. https://www.librarianshipstudies.com/2018/12/anglo-american-cataloguing-rules-aacr.html
2. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0361526X.2011.556425
3. https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2021/07/08/catalog-locally-share-globally/
4. https://www.librarianshipstudies.com/2017/07/resource-description-and-access-rda.html
5. https://journals.ala.org/lrts/article/view/6134/7929
6. https://www.lisedunetwork.com/anglo-american-cataloguing-rules-aacr-and-aacr2/
7. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348337056_Moving_Toward_BIBFRAME_and_a_Linked_Data_Environment
8. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322757590_RDA_implementation_and_the_emergence_of_BIBFRAME
9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_Requirements_for_Bibliographic_Records
10. https://www.librarianshipstudies.com/2017/09/functional-requirements-for-bibliographic-records-frbr.html
11. https://serials.atla.com/theolib/article/download/2268/2636/9380
12. https://www.rdatoolkit.org/news/rda/learning-resources
13. https://www.loc.gov/aba/pcc/rda/official-rda/implementation-faq.html
14. https://www.rdatoolkit.org/rsc/content/rda_faq