Library Cards for the 21st Century

This paper presents several reflections on the traditional card catalogues and RDF (Resource Description Framework), which is “the” standard for creating the Semantic Web. This work grew out of discussion between the authors after the Working Group on Metadata Schemes meeting held at IFLA conference in Buenos Aires (2004). The paper provides an overview of RDF from the perspective of cataloguers, catalogues, and library cards. The central theme of the discussion is resource description as a discipline that could be based on RDF. RDF is explained as a very simple grammar, using metadata and ontologies for semantic search and access. RDF has the ability to enhance 21st century libraries and support metadata interoperability in digital libraries, while maintaining the expressive power that was available to librarians when catalogues were physical artefacts