The Viewpoint of Cataloguers at the National Library and Archives of the I.R. Iran about Resource Description and Access (RDA) Rules and an Evaluation of their Acceptance

This research aimed at identifying the extent to which cataloguers were familiar with RDA, how ready they were to accept these rules, and how training may affect this. Methodology/Approach: The familiarity of 49 cataloguers working in the Cataloging in Publication (CIP) section of the National Library of Iran with RDA was evaluated using two methods i.e. self-reporting (personal opinion) and actual familiarity (using open questions) before and after training. Their acceptance of these rules was also studied. The cataloguers’ self-reporting about their familiarity with RDA before being trained indicate a higher than average level of familiarity while their actual level of familiarity was lower than average. After being trained their familiarity – both self-reported and actual – was higher than average. Furthermore, the existence of a significant difference between self-reported familiarity, actual familiarity and level of acceptance by cataloguers was also studied according to sex, education, age, and cataloguing experience. There was no significant difference between the cataloguers’ self-reported and actual familiarity with RDA except for cataloguers with different levels of education i.e. before and after being trained, the self-reported familiarity of cataloguers with a master’s degree was higher than the self-reported familiarity of cataloguers with a bachelor’s; furthermore, the actual familiarity of cataloguers with a master’s degree was higher than the actual familiarity of cataloguers with a bachelor’s degree.