Jakob Voss wrote:
>
> 1.) the standard is scattered in a set of PDF files instead of clean 
> web based HTML (compare with the W3C recommendations). You cannot 
> easily browse and search in RDA with your browser and a public search 
> engine of your choice. You cannot link to a specific paragraph to cite 
> RDA in a weblog positing etc. This shows me that the authors are still 
> bound in physical world of dusty books instead of the digital age.
These files are an output from the underlying XML that will fuel the 
online system. As you may know, no "print" output is anticipated -- this 
was done because the online system wasn't ready for the review period. 
(Thus: hang on to these files; they may be the only version of RDA you 
ever see!)

>
>
> 2.) RDA is not going to be published freely available on the web at 
> all! See http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/jsc/rdafaq.html#7 Another 
> reason why you won't be able to refer to specific sections of RDA. 
> Defining a standard without putting in on Open Access (ideally under a 
> specific CC-license) is retrogressive practise and a good strategy to 
> make people ignored, misinterprete and violated it (you could also 
> argue ethically that its a shame for every librarian not putting his 
> publications under Open Access but the argument of quality should be 
> enough).

Right, there's nothing like making standards unavailable as a way to 
promote their use :-)

>
>
> 3.) There are no official URIs for the elements of RDA. It looks like 
> there has been no progress compared to FRBR (IFLA failed to publish an 
> official RDF encoding of FRBR so several people created their own 
> vocabularies). To encode bibliographic data on the Semantic web you 
> need URIs for classes and properties. I don't expect RDA to get 
> published as a full ontology but at least you could determine the 
> basic concepts and elements and provide common URIs that people can 
> build on.

This IS being done at the NSDL metadata registry.
  General URL: http://metadataregistry.org
  RDA elements: http://metadataregistry.org/schema/show/id/1.html
  RDA agent roles: http://metadataregistry.org/schema/show/id/4.html

We are also working on discovering and coding the various value 
vocabularies in RDA. Click on the "Vocabularies" link on the Metadata 
Registry home page. You'll find some RDA vocabularies, like:
   RDA base material: http://metadataregistry.org/vocabulary/show/id/35.html

It's been hard developing these because, as you can see, RDA has been 
created as a document and the information is buried within it. We are 
not yet in sync with the latest version of the text. But in any case, 
these properties and vocabularies all have URIs. There are no classes 
defined as yet, since RDA itself does not define anything in the RDF 
sense of things, but eventually we may be able to add those.

FRBR will also be included in the registry. It is currently in the 
registry 'sandbox' awaiting a decision by IFLA on the domain to use in 
the URI. But you can see tests of it here:

FRBR entities:  
http://sandbox.metadataregistry.org/vocabulary/show/id/49.html
FRBR relationships:  
http://sandbox.metadataregistry.org/vocabulary/show/id/90.html
FRBR relationships as concepts:  
http://sandbox.metadataregistry.org/vocabulary/show/id/64.html
user tasks:  http://sandbox.metadataregistry.org/vocabulary/show/id/69.html
  
In addition, there are some attempts to code RDA-based cataloging on the 
DC/RDA site, using the cataloging use cases that various folks have 
contributed (and there are more coming):

http://dublincore.org/dcmirdataskgroup/Scenarios

Click on the link to the right of the scenario (e.g. Scenarios/1) and 
you'll see a turtle representation of the cataloging scenario using the 
URIs from the registry.

kc
p.s. And Please Feel Free to participate in this project with us. We are 
doing it all in 'spare time'



>
>
> What do you think about my concerns? We should try to get the JSC to 
> make RDA Open Access, prepared for use in the Web and even prepared 
> for the Semantic Web. This should not be too difficult - the main work 
> is convincing people (ok, it may be difficult to convince people ;-). 
> I'd be glad if you send your comments to the Joint Steering Committee 
> for Development of RDA until February 2nd:
>


-- 
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Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
[log in to unmask] http://www.kcoyle.net
ph.: 510-540-7596   skype: kcoylenet
fx.: 510-848-3913
mo.: 510-435-8234
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