A Comparison Between the RDA Taxonomies and End-User Categorizations of Content and Carrier

Resource Description and Access (RDA) includes new lists of content and carrier types intended to replace the General Material Designations (GMDs) and Specific Material Designations (SMDs) of the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules (AACR), and which represent taxonomies designed to facilitate searching on content and carrier attributes of resources. However, these taxonomies were not constructed through analysis of end-user categorizations, nor have they been tested on end-users. This study investigates how end-users categorize library resources by employing the free-listing technique, commonly used by cognitive scientists and information architects. The results indicate that end-user categorizations of library resources may emphasize other facets, such as purpose, audience, and extent, in addition to content and carrier, and also levels of the content and carrier facets other than those represented by the RDA terms.