RDA: Analysing the Impact of a New Cataloguing Standard on SUNCAT, the UK's Serials Union Catalogue

Abstract

SUNCAT is the union catalogue of serials in the UK, with just under 100 libraries contributing their serials data and associated holdings. These libraries use a variety of cataloguing standards already (e.g. AACR2, in-house), so the implementation of RDA will have consequences for display, indexing and matching in SUNCAT. To find out about the adoption of RDA in SUNCAT Contributing Libraries, a questionnaire was issued. The results indicated that, although there has been much thought around the topic, some libraries are waiting to see what others are doing before committing themselves to the expense of adapting a new cataloguing standard. Nearly all of SUNCAT Contributing Libraries are looking at moving to RDA, if they have not done so already, for new cataloguing. This means that SUNCAT will adapt processes to cater for RDA, but it is seen as another standard in an already hybrid catalogue.