Which standard governs how bibliographic data is expressed in modern cataloging, replacing earlier rules?

• A. Marc
• B. Variant Title
• C. RDA
• D. Statement of Responsibility

Answer: (C)

RDA (Resource Description and Access) provides the rules librarians use to describe resources and form access points in modern catalog records. It replaced the older AACR2 rules to better fit today’s digital world and to align with contemporary cataloging concepts like FRBR, which organizes information into works, expressions, manifestations, and items and clarifies how they relate. With RDA, librarians specify what information to capture (such as title, creator, publication details, edition) and how to present it so users can reliably discover and identify resources across different platforms and formats. It’s designed to be flexible for varied resource types, including digital, multimedia, and evolving formats, and supports linking to authority data for consistent identification of persons, organizations, and subjects. The other options are not the governing standard for describing resources: MARC is the encoding format used to store records, while Variant Title and Statement of Responsibility are individual data elements within records, not the overarching rules.