Robert L. Maxwell, RSC Chair Elect
Robert L. Maxwell is a senior librarian at the Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, where he has chaired the Special Collections and Formats Catalog Department and catalogues special collections materials, including early printed books and fine printing. His assignments there also include collecting and cataloguing classics materials (Latin and Greek) for the main library.
He was awarded the American Library Association’s 2024 Margaret Mann Citation for his contributions to the cataloguing profession. He also won the 2002 ALA Highsmith Library Literature award for the book Maxwell’s Guide to Authority Work (2002) and is the author of a number of other books on cataloguing published by ALA, including Maxwell’s Handbook for RDA (2013), winner of the 2014 ABC-CLIO Library Publishing Award and the 2015 Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS) Outstanding Publication Award.
He has taught cataloguing at Brigham Young University and the University of Arizona School of Information Resources and Library Science and has chaired the Bibliographic Standards Committee of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS) of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). He has been a voting member of ALA’s Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access (CC:DA), the body responsible for developing official ALA positions on revisions to RDA, and the liaison to CC:DA from the ALA Subject Analysis Committee to CC:DA. He has co-chaired the Program for Cooperative Cataloging’s Standing Committee on Training, has been a member of the PCC Standing Committee on Standards, and is one of two ALA representatives to the North American RDA Committee (NARDAC). In addition to an MLS from the University of Arizona, he holds a JD from Brigham Young University and a PhD in classical languages and literatures from the University of Toronto.
Before being appointed as Chair Elect, Robert served RSC Representative for North America
News Items About Robert
- 5 January 2026: RSC Chair and Chair Elect to Support Official RDA Implementation
- 22 December 2025: Thomas Brenndorfer Succeeds Melanie Polutta as Back-up RSC Representative to North America
- 22 December 2025: Trina Soderquist Appointed as RSC Representative Elect to North America
- 12 August 2025: Robert Maxwell Appointed RSC Chair Elect
- 1 July 2024: Robert Maxwell Awarded 2024 Margaret Mann Citation
Presentations by Robert
| Presentation Date | Title | Presenter / Author | Sponsor / Venue | Notes |
| 16 April 2024 | RDA Training Panel Discussion | Adam Baron, Thomas Brenndorfer, Robert Maxwell, Melanie Polutta, Louise Spiteri, Elisa Sze | NARDAC / RDA Toolkit | Panel begins at 01:57:35 |
| 16 April 2024 | NARDAC Spring Update Forum | Clara Liao (NARDAC Chair), Robert Maxwell, Elisa Sze and others | NARDAC / RDA Toolkit | |
| 27 September 2022 | Representative Expression Elements in Authority Records | Robert Maxwell | American Library Association Authority Control Interest Group | Video of this presentation begins at 00:02:13 |
| 25 April 2022 | Cataloging Using Official RDA : RDA, How to Use It with Documentation | Robert Maxwell and Melanie Polutta | NARDAC Update Forum | Video of this presentation: Maxwell presentation begins at 1:16:35 |
| 27 September 2022 | Representative Expression Elements in Authority Records | Robert Maxwell | American Library Association Authority Control Interest Group | Video of this presentation begins at 00:02:13 |
Page updated: 7 January 2026.