Distinguishing Content from Carrier: The RDA/ONIX Framework for Resource Categorization

RDA: Resource Description and Access [1] is in development as a new standard for resource description and access designed for the di gital world. It is being built on the foundation established for the Anglo-American Catal oguing Rules (AACR). Although it is being developed for use primarily in libraries, it aims to attain an effective level of alignment with the metadata stan dards used in related communities such as archives, museums and publishers, and to pr ovide a better fit with emerging database technologies. A specific focus of RDA is t he description of elements of the content and carrier of a resource that will help us ers to identify and select the resource to meet their needs with respect to the fo rm of content, subject, volatility, etc., on the one hand, and the physical characteris tics of the carrier, the formatting and encoding of the information, etc., on the other .