WARNING!!! CATALOGING GEEKRY IS FOUND IN THIS POST.
OK, as many of you know, I am a Head of Technical Services, but I make a concerted effort to not post about things related to cataloging. There are a ton of great blogs on the subject. However, the issue I want to discuss is more related to users than to cataloging.
As many people know, we will begin phasing out AACR2 for RDA. RDA has some benefits over AACR2. However, what irks me is that it is touted as user-centered or user-focused. RDA is built on the FRBR framework, also touted as user-centered. For an example of articles please see ( Riva, Pat. Introducing the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records and Related IFLA Developments. Bulletin. orChapman, Ann. RDA: a New International Standard. Ariadne. or Oliver, Chris. Changing to RDA. Feliciter.)
The problem, not one user-study has been conducted on either AACR2 or FRBR or RDA. Heck, we have almost no studies of how users actually look up books in the catalog at all.
The Information Activist Librarian 