Book Review: The RDA Workbook: Learning the Basics of Resource Description and Access

Abstract

The RDA Workbook: Learning Basics of Resource Description and Access. Edited by Margaret Mering. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited, 2014. 190 p. $55 paperback (ISBN 978-1-61069-489-6) With implementation of RDA: Resource Description and Access in 2013, catalogers have been faced with task of learning a new set of rules and guidelines that is complex and unfinished. (1) To aid in this effort, several experts have written books dedicated to explaining RDA, clarifying rules, and interpreting them effectively. However, there have been very few works that both make a concerted effort to guide catalogers to a clear understanding of rules and underlying theory, and that offer practical steps in creating RDA records. With The RDA Workbook, Mering and her colleagues have taken first steps toward rectifying this deficiency, albeit in a very general way. The book begins as any work on RDA should, with an explanation of Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR). This explanation, written by Melissa Moll, takes wise step of first explaining Statement of International Cataloguing Principles (ICP) and how FRBR, and its implementation in RDA, conforms to these principles. (2) By doing this, Moll removes FRBR from vacuum in which it sometimes seems to exist and makes it more concrete. Where many explanations of FRBR simply describe varying entities in Groups 1, 2, and 3, Moll orients her description of these entities around a single work, in this case the bibliographic universe surrounding The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (4). By focusing on a particular work, reader gets a clear picture of entities and attributes associated with work and how they correspond to FRBR model. The key to this chapters success is wealth of diagrams explaining how FRBR maps to real works. Rather than simply offering explanations, chapter is peppered with small exercises related to material at hand. It ends with three larger exercises that both solidify FRBR model and help reader navigate RDA Toolkit, which derives its organization from FRBR. The chapter concludes with diagrams that guide readers through RDA based on whether they are identifying an attribute or a relationship. Once theory is explained, actual application of RDA is addressed in context of bibliographic and authority records. Rather than immediately describing how to create records, a list of key differences between RDA and Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, second edition (AACR2) is provided, such as concept of core and core-if, lack of abbreviations, and elimination of rule of three. (3) The reader is then guided through process of creating an original cataloging record for a book using RDA with citations of applicable rules and associated Library of Congress Program for Cooperative Cataloging Policy Statements (LC-PCCs). Following this is a very helpful table that maps MARC fields to RDA elements and instruction numbers. This table reinforces structure of RDA Toolkit and further solidifies readers knowledge of how to find rules and guidelines. The chapter concludes with tables giving various RDA elements and their core status, of what they are attributes, where they are found in RDA, and how they are recorded in MARC. …