Training as Infrastructure: Building a National RDA Program Without a National Cataloguing Mandate

Abstract

The Official RDA Toolkit, launched in 2020, marked a significant shift in cataloguing practice internationally through its focus on linked data compatibility. Canadian cataloguers have navigated this transition since 2010, but without a body to coordinate training, policy guidance, or implementation support at the national level. This gap reflects lost continuity and narrowed mandates among the bodies that once coordinated cataloguing work.

This gap both unequally burdens libraries constrained by geography, size, or funding, and has consequences beyond individual institutions. When large libraries and vendors implement Official RDA, downstream effects ripple to less resourced libraries that tend to lack the training to interpret or apply the data they receive.

This paper reports on the RDA Training in Canada Working Group (RTCWG), a grassroots initiative of cataloguing librarians, managers, and educators developing open-access training through curriculum development, mentorship, and an online clearinghouse of materials. The RTCWG is presented not as a model solution but as evidence of a structural risk voluntary effort alone cannot address.

The paper argues that training is shared cataloguing infrastructure, not an individual responsibility, offering a case study in what happens when infrastructure is absent and what building one requires, with implications for similarly positioned regions.

Keywords: Resource Description and Access (RDA), metadata standards, cataloguing training, professional development, professional infrastructure