RDA in Copac: A Practical Assessment

Abstract

Copac is best known as the UK national, academic and specialist research library catalogue, but the Copac team also provide the RLUK shared cataloguing database; thus changes in cataloguing standards mean considering the impact and potential of RDA across both services. This paper discusses initial thoughts on issues around adopting RDA from a union catalogue perspective, looking at some of the implications for data standardization, as well as deduplication and display. However Copac is not working in isolation: the union catalogue data is supplied by RLUK members, plus increasing numbers of other specialist institutions, so Copac staff carried out a short contributor survey in spring 2012 to gain an understanding of their contributors' plans, with a partial update to this in spring 2013. In general larger institutions were further ahead with their planning, whilst for some libraries there was still uncertainty over whether to move to RDA. For those planning to move to RDA the timescales vary significantly and Copac will be supporting AACR2 for some time to come. As for most libraries, Copac has limited resources. The staff are involved in a diverse range of activities, so they are conscious of the resource implications of any developments. However, they are also keen to explore the potential within RDA for new flexibility and relationships for the benefit of its user communities, alongside the enhanced potential for working with new data formats, including linked data.