RDA and RDF: A discourse analysis of two standards of resource description

Abstract

The World Wide Web Consortium’s Resource Description Framework (RDF) and the library community’s new cataloguing standard, Resource Description and Access (RDA), both profess to provide sophisticated and flexible means of describing resources for modern Web environments. But both have attracted scepticism from potential users, who argue that their supposed innovations are overrated. A comparison of the two standards using Michel Foucault’s theory of discourse formations suggests that while the two standards differ in their community contexts and their use of intermediaries, they are similar to each other in their commitment to consistent, rigorously-defined entities and relationships; this shared commitment sets them apart from Web 2.0 developments, and offers the potential for fruitful collaboration.