The need for consistent and flexible rules for describing all types of library resources (not only publications), which would allow better use of bibliographic data and greater efficiency of library catalogues, led to the decision to update the Slovenian cataloguing practice in accordance with the RDA standard several years ago.
The Commission for the Development of the Professional Basis of the Union Catalogue is basing the modernisation of the cataloguing rules on the organisation of bibliographic data in the IFLA LRM conceptual entity-relational model and the Resource Description and Access (RDA) international metadata standard for the digital environment.
The Commission is working on Rules that will include and define which elements/metadata are recorded, their status (mandatory/non-mandatory elements) and the way the data is provided (transcription/simple entry/structured format).
The description elements will be included as metadata in the application profile (format) for basic search and display methods. An examination of the material produced so far focusing on the set of elements (attributes and relations of the entities appearance, copy, expression and work) covering the aspects of resource identification and linking, will serve to align the elements with the application profile.
Work on the preparation of new cataloguing rules will be presented, which will be published in the form of Rules.
