In the name authority fields of a bibliographic record (for example, 1XX and 7XX) you can add a relator subfield $e in the tag to indicate the relationship/role that the named person/organisation played in the creation of the title being catalogued. For example, they may be the author, the translator, the editor, a performer, an artist, etc.

This area is changing substantially with the introduction of the new RDA cataloguing rules. In previous times, these relationship terms and codes were seldom used as most names referred simply to authors. They were sometimes used for non-book materials (movies, CDs and so on). The new rules indicate that a relationship role should be applied for every name and that this should be done using relatively predefined terms with no abbreviations, for example, author.

Prior to this, the $e subfield that you entered into a bibliographic record was included in the linked authority heading. This however is not correct. These terms should only be held in the bibliographic record because they signify the relationship between that person and the title in the bibliographic record. If the term is held in the authority heading as previously done, duplicate authority headings are created for each different role a name has performed in relation to the bibliographic records. Since this data hasn't been used to a great extent in the past, this hasn't been a big issue, but with the advent of the new RDA rules it will become a bigger issue.

Spydus will stop the $e entered in the bibliographic record from being automatically moved into the linked authority record. Therefore records will link to a single authority record with the different role stored in the bibliographic record.