Basic introduction of RDA's development in China until June, 2012.

1. RDA in China
Kai Li
“RDA Worldwide”, ALAMS 12
Anaheim, California
June 24th, 2012

2. Questions
• How the Chinese cataloging community
perceives RDA?
• What factors will influence the decision
whether or not RDA will be implemented in
China, and how?
• And, WILL RDA BE USED IN CHINA?

3. Methods
• Survey
• Interviews

4. Survey: How Chinese librarians
perceive RDA?
• The design of this survey is largely based on
the one conducted in 2010 (?) by Elaine
Sanchez.
• Online survey in a Chinese survey platform
“Wenjuanxing” (问卷星).
• Date: Feb. 28- Mar. 30, 2012
• 180 valid responses were received.

5. Participants’ general knowledge of RDA
60
50
40
N=180; 1 being 30
the least 20
familiar, 5 being
10
the most familiar
0
1 2 3 4 5
How the participants
rank their knowledge of 44 57 53 22 4
RDA?
How the participants
rank their knowledge of
the differences 52 56 39 25 8
between RDA and
AACR2

6. Outline of the topics in this
presentation
• Fragmented landscape of cataloging in China
• Translation of RDA into Chinese
• Localization: RDA and Chinese cataloging
• RDA and the semantic web
• RDA and ILS in China

7. Fragmented landscape of
Chinese cataloging community

8. Different language/transcript materials are
treated separately
Chinese materials Western-language
materials
Cataloging Chinese Cataloging AACR2 or Descriptive
rules: Rules Cataloguing Rules
for Western Language
Materials.
Format: CNMARC MARC 21
Headings: In Chinese In English or other
western languages
Shelving: Materials in different languages are shelved
separately in most of Chinese libraries.
Cataloging Catalogers in different groups have little
staff: communications.

9. NLC vs. CALIS
• As the two leading bibliographic institutions in
China, cataloging policies of National Library
of China and CALIS are inconsistent in many
ways.

10. AACR2 vs. Descriptive Cataloguing
Rules for Western Language Materials
• Descriptive Cataloguing Rules for Western
Language Materials was developed for the
community to catalog western materials.
• 1st ed., 1985; Rev. ed., 2003.
• “There will be certain difficulties of using
international standard [AACR2] directly,
especially in terms of how to describe Chinese
personal and corporate names.”

11. • The translation of RDA into Chinese started in
May, 2012.
• Based on a print version.
• Further works to be done: RDA Toolkit,
registered vocabularies…
Translation

12. Have the participants ever used or known RDA
Toolkit?
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
N=179 Used Known None above
Have you ever used or
17 46 116
known RDA Toolkit?

13. Have the participants' institutions acquired RDA?
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
Will
Have Will
Will not
Have Will bough buy
not buy
subscri subscri t the the
subscri the Unkno
bed be print print
be print wn
RDA RDA versio versio
RDA versio
Toolkit Toolkit n of n of
N=180 Toolkit
RDA RDA
n of
RDA
Have the participants'
3 19 34 5 14 28 115
institutions bought RDA?

14. RDA and Chinese cataloging
practices

15. Authorized Access Point
• The concept of main entry / authrized access
point is the major obstacle of RDA’s
implementation in China in terms of the
cataloging practice, since this concept doesn’t
exist in the Chinese cataloging system.

16. RDA and the Chinese MARC format
• The community is concerned about when
UNIMARC will be updated according with
RDA. Only after that, can CNMARC be adapted
to the new cataloging rules.

17. RDA and the semantic web

18. RDA and the semantic web
• Linked data is being paid attention to by a
small, yet active group of librarians in China.
• This community is generally excited about
RDA for its potential to link library data to a
bigger world, however, much more top-down
efforts should be invested in this area.

19. The participants’ knowledge of SW
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
N=179 & 180 0
1 2 3 4 5
How the participants
rank their knowledge of 44 72 35 23 5
the semantic web?
How the participants
rank their knowledge of 50 51 37 32 10
FRBR model?

20. • Local ILS products are still dominant in the
market, and will be a potential problem for
RDA’s implementation in China, given the low
level of awareness of RDA in the whole
community.
RDA and ILS landscape in China

21. Other factors?

22. RDA’s future in China?

23. Scenarios
• #1 RDA be used uniformly in both Chinese
cataloging and Western cataloging communities;
• #2 RDA be used in Western cataloging, while
another parallel standard be developed and used
in Chinese cataloging;
• #3 Localized standards (based on FRBR and ICP)
be developed and used in both Chinese
cataloging and Western cataloging community;
• #4 No efforts be done in this area (at least in a
short time).

24. Thanks!
islanderee@gmail.com
www.facebook.com/kai.lee.nalsi
twitter.com/Nalsi