Mutual influence among IFLA standards. The ICP case

Abstract

The Statement of International Cataloguing Principles has been undergoing a quite continuous revision process since 2013 and even after the publication of the final version in 2016. In fact, the Cataloguing Section’s Standing Committee has agreed on a new edition of the Statement af-ter the approval of the IFLA Library Reference Model in 2017 in order to smooth some differ-ences, especially in the definitions. The current ICP revision incorporates IFLA LRM concepts, but not adopting completely its definitions. Probably it is not possible or desirable to have ex-actly the same definitions - word by word – in every standard when these lay in different theo-retical levels. The most important point is not to have contradictions among concepts, rather among wordings. Furthermore, how to deal with different standards bearing shared concepts and having revisions scheduled in different years? Could it be useful to determine some kind of hierarchy among IFLA standards related to their level of abstraction?