Uniform Titles From AACR to RDA

Even before John Fiske (1878) reminded catalogers of their “duty” to correctly identify authors with the same name, uniform headings had assumed a place and purpose in nineteenth-century catalogs. Rules for names of persons, families, corporate bodies, and places have been developed to ensure consistency of both structure and application. Catalogers agree on the importance of form when creating either uniform headings or uniform titles. Paths diverge at the point of application. Effective collocation by means of uniform titles is entirely dependent on whether or not the option to establish them is exercised. In this article, we explore how the concept and treatment of “uniform title” has evolved within Anglo-American cataloging codes, and is changing within RDA: Resource Description and Access