3R Project

What You Should Know about the December Switchover

This 3R Project will come to a close with the elevation of the beta RDA Toolkit to official RDA status in December. This "Switchover" (that's what we are calling the move) may be causing some anxiety among Toolkit users, or at least raising some questions in regard to what exactly will happen. The following statements attempt to address some questions users might have and hopefully ease any anxieties there might be.

Completion of 3R Project

Current Status

With the April and September 2019 releases to the RDA Toolkit beta site, the RDA text has been stabilized and the site has met project goals for accessibility and revision reporting. This wraps up 3R work on the English language version of the standard and the site. The focus of work has shifted to translations and the development of policy statements and application profiles. Translations are well under way with expectations that nine translations will be published in the next 15 months.

3R Accessibility Goals Met

One of the most important goals of the RDA Toolkit Restructure and Redesign Project (commonly known as the 3R Project) was to bring the site into compliance with current accessibility standards. More specifically the goal was to reach a AA rating according the the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. After the stabilization of the standard in  April of this year, the beta site underwent a full evaluation by an independent consulting firm which returned a list of accessibility issues with the beta site.

Teaching RDA After 3R

Join us on Monday, August 19th for a 90 minute workshop on Teaching RDA After 3R with Brian Dobreski. Geared toward LIS instructors responsible for teaching RDA as well as practitioners who perform staff training, this webinar covers strategies for introducing students to the new RDA Toolkit. This webinar addresses how to teach students to use the new Toolkit, with an emphasis on how to navigate RDA and understand its setup, how to find what they need, and how they can take advantage of new functionality important to learners.

Where to Find Examples in the Beta Toolkit jhennelly Mon, 07/02/2018 - 01:38

We have heard from some users that examples have been few and far between. Because the RDA text is still a work in progress on the beta site, it has been difficult to write examples. When the 3R Project is complete we expect there to be many more examples in the new Toolkit as compared to the original one. Also the new Toolkit will feature new types of examples, including examples for recording methods, relationship examples, and examples in context. The attached list will guide users to instructions with a variety of examples.

December 2020 RDA Toolkit Release jhennelly Thu, 12/10/2020 - 09:20

A new release of the beta RDA Toolkit was published on December 15th. The release marks the end of the RDA Toolkit Restructure and Redesign Project, commonly known as the 3R Project. With this release the beta Toolkit site that debuted in 2018 becomes the official RDA Toolkit, available at access.rdatoolkit.org. The original RDA Toolkit will remain available to all subscribers at original.rdatoolkit.org. The original site can also be accessed from the new Toolkit through the Resources tab and from the top banner menu bar.

RDA and MARC 21 alignments jhennelly Thu, 12/10/2020 - 09:05

RDA Toolkit has always offered an alignment between RDA elements and the MARC 21 Authority and Bibliographic formats. This is not, strictly speaking, a linked data or semantic map because there is no formal representation of MARC 21 in Resource Description Framework (RDF). Instead, an alignment matches an RDA element to a string that represents the corresponding MARC 21 tag, indicators, and subfield. The alignments are one-to-many: a single RDA element aligns with multiple combinations of tag, indicators, and subfield. The alignments are complex.

Removing the Relationship Matrix

When the RDA Toolkit beta site debut in June 2018, what had been relationship designators in the original toolkit became relationship elements. The Relationship Matrix was included in the beta site as a replacement for the appendices I-L that allows users to do a quick look-up of relationship elements. Unfortunately from the debut of the Relationship Matrix the feature has suffered from inaccuracies in its content and difficulties processing updates to the content.