RDA: Will It Be Cataloger's Judgment or Cataloger's Judgement Day?

The article discusses practical problems that are likely to arise with implementation of Resource Description and Access (RDA) which advance advertising claims would make the exercise of judgment easier for catalogers. The two main problems could be summed up thus: materials collected by libraries have become more varied and sophisticated since RDA first appeared in 1978, and catalogers as a group have not developed greater inclination to take risks. The author, then, is of the view that great challenges await the third millennium's new cataloging rules.