CANADIAN ASSOCIATION OF RESEARCH LIBRARIES
CARL Honours Pat Riva with Award of Merit

The Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) is pleased to have presented Pat Riva, Associate University Librarian, Collection Services, Concordia University Library, with the CARL Award of Merit during its virtual Spring General Meeting. The CARL Award of Merit is awarded to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution within an area of research librarianship and whose contribution has had broad and beneficial impact within the CARL community.

Ms. Riva receives the Award of Merit in recognition of her national and international accomplishments on behalf of Canadian academic libraries and universities in the development of bibliographic standards and the conceptual modelling of bibliographic information.

Ms. Riva has multidisciplinary training in mathematics, linguistics and library science, an extensive research dossier including 80 publications and 41 conference papers and presentations, and over 3 decades of experience in university and national libraries. Prior to Concordia, she served in different capacities at McGill University and Bibliothèques et Archives nationales du Québec.

She has made outstanding contributions as chair or contributor of different national and international committees and "her contributions to the development of international bibliographic standards have productively advanced the activity of metadata creation in the 21st century, as well as advancing the community's understanding of the necessity for changes," said Christine Oliver, Head, Metadata and Processing, University of Ottawa Library.

For over two decades Ms. Riva has served as Chair of the Canadian Committee on MARC (CCM), now known as the Canadian Committee on Metadata Exchange, which contributes to the international development of MARC 21 so that bibliographic data can be exchanged and re-used seamlessly by all libraries.

In 2001, she joined the Format Variation Working Group, an international working group tasked with integrating IFLA's Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) concepts into the cataloguing code, AACR2, early groundwork that contributed to the development of RDA.

In addition to her long-term involvement with the development of RDA, she played a significant role in the implementation of this new standard, including translation and training. She was a key player in the project that produced a French translation of RDA and went on to train francophone cataloguers in Québec and New Brunswick.

As chair of the FRBR Review Group, she led the consolidation of three IFLA models into one logically consistent and streamlined model, IFLA Library Reference Model (LRM), which is now the basis for RDA. Under her leadership, IFLA LRM was brought up to date with current conceptual modelling practices and optimized for use in the linked data/semantic web environment.

As a member of the International Working Group on FRBR and CIDOC CRM Harmonisation, she was engaged in the harmonization of IFLA LRM with the international museum model (CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model) which yielded the two object-oriented models: FRBROO and LRMOO. This work has had a significant impact because it connects library data to museum data through shared modelling and provides the infrastructure for data interoperability across these communities.

"Pat has a formidable presence and a strong impact in her network and in academia in general. She is an exceptionally intelligent, engaged and engaging colleague who influences library and information policy at institutional, national and international levels at this pivotal moment in the evolution of libraries," said Graham Carr, President and Vice-Chancellor, Concordia University. CARL is pleased to be able to present Ms. Riva with the Award of Merit in honor of her numerous and significant contributions to this crucial field for academic libraries.