[Web4lib] First RDA Vocabularies published

[Diane I. Hillmann]

  [Please excuse duplication]


*First RDA Vocabularies Published*

The Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA
<http://www.rda-jsc.org/> (JSC), the DCMI/RDA Task Group
(http://dublincore.org/dcmirdataskgroup/), and ALA Publishing
<http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/index.cfm> (on
behalf of the co-publishers of RDA) are pleased to announce
that the first group of RDA controlled vocabularies have been reviewed,
approved, and their status in the Open Metadata Registry (OMR) changed
to ‘published.’

This status change, from ‘new-proposed’ to ‘published’ signals that the
final steps have begun in reviewing the work of the DCMI/RDA Task Group
and ensuring that the RDA vocabularies (both elements and controlled
vocabularies/concepts) are available in a stable form for the builders
of applications. Additional reviews of the controlled vocabularies are
in progress, with the parties involved expecting to finalize that group
before starting on the element vocabularies. Both groups of vocabularies
should be complete by the end of 2011, but developers and others should
expect to see rolling announcements as reviews are completed.

Alan Danskin, Chair of the Joint Steering Committee, noted, “The RDA
vocabularies are a fundamental component of RDA, promoting consistent
description and discovery of bibliographic resources. The Committee is
committed to publishing and maintaining the content of the RDA
vocabularies, synchronized with the text of RDA, in order to support
their use by the resource description community and by developers of
Semantic Web applications.” JSC is grateful to the Task Group members
and to the Open Metadata Registry for making possible the publication of
RDA vocabularies as linked open data.

Gordon Dunsire, co-Chair of the DCMI/RDA Task Group, said: “This
achievement is a significant waypoint on the collaborative journey
initiated by the London meeting in 2007 between representatives of RDA
and Semantic Web communities developing and maintaining metadata models
covering bibliographic resources. We have learned much about each other
along the way, and look forward to continuing to provide a bridge which
supports our mutual interests to the benefit of all users of
information. The RDA vocabularies represent many decades of library
experience and practice which is now shared with the rest of the world.”

Troy Linker, Publisher, ALA Digital Reference, said: "The publishing of
the RDA vocabularies in an open registry is an important step forward in
making RDA accessible to the international library community and system
vendors, and, significantly, beyond the library community to the rest of
the Semantic Web. Working with the JSC, the Co-Publishers for RDA are
committed to ensuring synchronicity between RDA Toolkit and the registry".

The finished vocabularies can be viewed using the links below. (The
links lead to the description of the vocabulary itself, the specific
terms can be viewed under the tab for ‘concepts’).

RDA Aspect Ratio (http://rdvocab.info/termLIst/AspectRatio)
RDA Form of Musical Notation (http://rdvocab.info/termList/MusNotation)
RDA Form of Notated Music (http://metadataregistry.org/uri/FormatNoteMus)
RDA Layout of Cartographic Images 
(http://rdvocab.info/termList/layoutCartoImage)
RDA Mode of Issuance (http://rdvocab.info/termLIst/ModeIssue)
RDA Other Distinguishing Characteristic of the Expression of a Legal Work
(http://metadataregistry.org/uri/OtherCharExpLegal)
RDA Production Method for Tactile Resource 
(http://rdvocab.info/termList/prodTactile)
RDA Reduction Ratio (http://rdvocab.info/termLIst/RDAReductionRatio)
RDA Scale (http://metadataregistry.org/uri/scale)
RDA Sound Content (http://rdvocab.info/termList/soundCont)
RDA Status of Identification 
(http://rdvocab.info/termList/statIdentification)

All the RDA vocabularies can be viewed in the OMR by using this page:
http://metadataregistry.org/rdabrowse.htm. Those interested in
following the work of review and publication of the vocabularies can
subscribe to the Registry RSS feeds linked from that page. Questions on
the OMR can be conveyed using the ‘Feedback’ link on each Registry page.

Questions or comments on the review process or the content of specific
vocabularies may be addressed to the Chair of the JSC, Alan Danskin
[alan.danskin at bl.uk]. Questions and comments on the encoding of the
vocabularies or on the Open Metadata Registry may be addressed to Diane
Hillmann [metadata.maven at gmail.com] or Gordon Dunsire
[gordon at gordondunsire.com].

/1 August 2011/