Dear Colleagues,
We are pleased to announce the publication of the RBMS Policy Statements in the Official RDA Toolkit. The RBMS Policy Statements are maintained by the RBMS RDA Editorial Group, a subgroup of the Bibliographic Standards Committee (BSC) of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS) of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). The statements provide guidance on the description of rare materials typically found in rare book, manuscript, and special collections repositories.
The RBMS Policy Statements are based on Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (DCRMR), an open-source, integrating resource that will be updated over time. DCRMR is an RDA-aligned revision of a suite of manuals published as Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (DCRM), which cover various formats of rare materials. The current version of DCRMR includes instructions for the description of rare books only. As instructions for additional formats (e.g., rare graphics) are incorporated into DCRMR from the original DCRM suite, the scope of the RBMS Policy Statements will expand accordingly. For information on the application of RDA and the DCRM manuals, consult the BSC's statement on DCRM and RDA.
Most of the RBMS Policy Statements are brief, concise statements that provide guidance on the application of options in the RDA Toolkit. All of the statements include hyperlinked citations to relevant instructions in DCRMR for further information. Although the text of the RBMS Policy Statements is available without a subscription via a landing page in the RDA Toolkit, a subscription to the Toolkit is required to view them in context with RDA instructions.
We sincerely thank all current and past members of the RBMS RDA Editorial Group, previous DCRM and policy statement editorial groups, and the Bibliographic Standards Committee, as well as the larger rare materials cataloging community, for their contributions to writing, editing, and reviewing the RBMS Policy Statements. We are grateful for your collegiality, dedication, and good humor.
Best,
RBMS RDA Editorial Group
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Jessica Grzegorski
Rare Materials Metadata Librarian
Northwestern University Libraries
She/Her/Hers
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