> -----Original Message----- > From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access > [mailto:RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA] On Behalf Of Kevin M. Randall > Sent: February 14, 2011 6:14 PM > To: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA > Subject: Re: [RDA-L] RDA and MARC > > Mac Elrod wrote: > > > John Myers said: > > > > >RDA would be our equivalent to force us to recast our > > >coding for upgrading to 21st century systems and needs. > > > > > > But shouldn't that coding horse preceed that rule cart? Why adopt > > rules we can't code? > > My guess is that since we need *both* the new horse *and* the new cart, > we > have to start with at least one of them. If we design the cart, then > we'll > know more what kind of horse we'll need to breed... (In other words, > if we > don't know exactly the kind of data we're going to collect, and how we > want > to use the data, then we won't know exactly how to encode the data.) >
This might be of help: http://www.rda-jsc.org/docs/5editor3.pdf (although it's now dated, since the registration of the RDA element set discussed has now happened). In the interim, MARC21, MODS, and Dublin Core/XML can be used as proxies for RDA. With the element set now defined, the horse is definitely in front of the cart. The cart (MARC) is serviceable, but one would expect a trade-in at some point in the future. Thomas Brenndorfer Guelph Public Library