RDA and the open access disappointment
I admit that I have not been following the development of RDA (Resource Description and Access) closely. In short, RDA is a new library cataloguing standard that is being introduced to replace our current standard, AACR2R. I’ve seen a couple of conference presentations on the topic, read a couple of blog posts, but that’s about it.
Today our department organized a viewing of an archived webcast of A Guided Tour of the RDA Toolkit. As I sat in attendance, I was impressed by the resource that was created. As a non cataloguer, I’m in no position to critique the content with authority, but I was very impressed with the layout and multiple access points for information.
Near the end of the presentation, the talk shifted to pricing models. Pricing starts at $325 dollars, with an added cost of approximately $50 for each added simultaneous user.
I sadly realized at that point that the open access movement still has a long way to go. As librarians, we’re fighting for access to information by asking authors and publishers worldwide to provide open access to published works. And here we are, enforcing toll access to our own rules that govern one of our most critical functions: describing items to enable access! If RDA is expected to become a worldwide standard for cataloguing, and is only available through a web interface, access to this information will only be available to the privileged class who can afford it.
While the subscription fee is not a crushing cost to bear for a large academic library, its a different story for libraries in the developing world, or small non profits, or even struggling public small town libraries. These costs are simply not affordable.
I’m upset by this fee structure, because I believe that by perpetuating barriers to access for cataloguing rules, we will see lower quality description of data from smaller organizations and the developing world, which will translate into these resources being less visible and less interoperable with our future work on linked data and the semantic web. In short, we’re working against or own mandate of broadening equitable access to information.
What I’m told by colleagues is that the development of RDA was a joint effort, including lots of free hours of work from many librarians who collaborated to come up with these new rules. What I’m proposing is to continue this collaborative effort to ensure that this information is openly available to the global community.
The hosting and maintenance of RDA is not without cost, of course. That fancy interface took many hours of labour to construct, and will take many more to maintain and update. How about adopting a consortia approach to funding, similar to SCOAP3 or ArXiv, where the larger institutions that can afford to contribute, pay an annual subscription fee to cover costs? This way, RDA is funded, but the world has access. Wouldn’t this be a wonderful opportunity to provide an example to the world of how new publishing models can work?
Come on library world…let’s practice what we preach!
