Dear MIG colleagues,
Apologies for short turnaround time. Please send me any comments you might have on the following RDA revision proposals by end of day this Thur. 28 May.
Proposal to revise the preferred order of recording sources for early printed
resources in Data provenance: Recording a source of metadata that is a manifestation that is
being described (RSC/ExamplesEditor/2026/1)
I support this proposal, which would reorder some of the data provenance condition options for source of information to better align with companion standards like DCRM(R).
Full deprecation of soft deprecated elements for digest, review, and critique (RSC/TechnicalWG/2026/3)
I support this proposal, which would deprecate soft-deprecated resource-to-resource relationship elements for digests and criticism. Instead of using the digest relationship elements, catalogers would use the broader relationship elements for abridgements. Likewise, the several soft-deprecated criticism relationships would be deprecated, and catalogers would instead use the broader "evaluation" elements. Within CC:DA, there has been some discussion as to whether a digest is distinct from an abridgement, in that a digest may summarize more than one work, whereas an abridgement. Nonetheless, I'm not sure most users, or even most cataloging communities, would care about this distinction, so I support this change.
Full deprecation of Soft-deprecated elements specific to content and carrier types (RSC/TechnicalWG/2026/4)
I also support this minor revision, which would take a set of carrier specific relationship elements that are already soft-deprecated and fully deprecate them. Instead of using the soft-deprecated relationship elements "filmed with item" / "filmed with manifestation" and "on disc with item" / "on disc with manifestation," catalogers would use the broader "Item: on manifestation with" and "Manifestation: on carrier unit with" elements. In addition, the carrier-specific, soft-deprecated relationship element "scale of still image or three-dimensional form" would be fully deprecated in favor of the broader relationship element "scale." I support this revision, as it affects elements that are already soft-deprecated, and it contributes to the simplification of the RDA standard. I don't think it is good to have these sorts of carrier-specific resource relationship elements, as the carrier is covered elsewhere in an RDA description. Having carrier-specific relationship elements also sets a bad precedent, encouraging the creation of similar relationships based on carrier rather than the properties of the relationship itself. Within CC:DA, there has been some discussion about whether this rationale could extend to simplifying RDA relationship elements for bound-withs.
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Timothy Ryan Mendenhall (he/him)
Metadata Librarian, Columbia University
CORE Metadata Interest Group Liaison to CC:DA
trm2151@columbia.edu------------------------------