RDA at the Swiss National Library: Challenges and New Opportunities

Abstract

The first national libraries implemented RDA: Resource Description and Access in Spring 2013 and others are planning to implement the new standard in the course of the year or in the years to come. The Swiss National Library (NL) has decided to adopt RDA, and now needs to plan its implementation. In March 2013 a master's student in library and information science at the University of Zurich wrote a thesis which examined the NL's situation and made suggestions for the next steps in the implementation process. It served as a basis for this article.

The article provides information about the NL's current situation in terms of cataloguing, RDA and cooperation. It outlines the NL's special situation in Switzerland, a country with four national and three official languages. In particular, it explains the legal directives the NL has to observe. It elaborates on the NL's activities in international committees, as well as on its undertakings at a national level. Furthermore, it highlights the challenges the national library of a multilingual country faces when adopting a new cataloguing code and it presents the next steps the NL will have to take.