Experiences transitioning to RDA

The British Museum has recently switched from Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules (AACR2) to Resource, Description and Access (RDA) in a hybrid-catalogue intervention.

Alan Danskin, Collection Metadata Standards Manager at the British Library recently presented to the Association of Pall Mall Librarians on the introduction of RDA. He pointed out that for many; RDA was created due to the perception that AACR2 was not fit for purpose. This is because it has not adapted well to recent changes in user expectation and technology where information in presented on different platforms such as the web. Therefore, managing the cataloguing environment has become increasingly complex and the metadata captured needed to change.

There are free online training materials and webinars available for learning about RDA. However, the main issue with implementing RDA in small libraries or museums is that there are not many training courses or advice available. I have only come across the ‘RDA in a day’ course offered by the BL. As many will know this became very full, very quickly! Alan stated that the course was success and would run again possibly this year.

Being a Subject Librarian

I am currently on a long road towards my dream of being a Subject Librarian for East Asian collections. During my last few months as a Library Graduate Trainee at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, I thought it would a good opportunity to meet and talk with individuals within this field as a form of CPD. Last week, I interviewed Fujiko Kobayashi, the Subject Librarian for Japan and Korea at SOAS. The questions below formed the basis of my talk with her about her role and its importance within the university.

How did you come into your role? How do you spend most of your day? How do you see your career progressing?

Fujiko like many other librarians simply fell into the role. First from teaching in Japan, to volunteering as a teacher in Malaysia before moving to America and studying Librarianship as a random interest. She greatly credits that participating in a Masters degree around the time were the internet really took off, allowed her new skills in cataloguing and programming with HTML and CSS to assist in landing a job as Library Assistant in London. Before progressing to become a Subject Librarian at SOAS. I expected to hear that as a Subject Librarian she would be getting involved in projects (e.g. preparing reading lists for programmes and research courses) but the majority of her time is spent split 50/50 between cataloguing and classification and dealing with enquiries. Every so often she provides one-one training seminars for research PhD students. Due to her previous experience in teaching she would like to continue to assist students and complete the mammoth task of cataloguing the 60% of the collections that is not online.