This document discusses the RDA Registry, which houses the RDA vocabularies and elements. It provides URIs for classes, properties, and relationships that are used to build RDA records. The registry aims to support various applications and users by maintaining stable URIs, providing documentation on elements, and making downloads available in different formats. It also discusses plans to further improve synchronization with the RDA Toolkit and development of application profiles.

1. Infrastructure for Use
RDA Infrastructure Beyond the
Guidelines
“What’s an RDA
Record?”
Diane I. Hillmann
RDA UPDATE

2. Descriptive Building Blocks
O Records built from statements (triples)
O Triples contain subject – predicate - object
O Statements contain data
O Elements (classes, properties)
O Relationships (relating ‘subject’ to ‘object’)
O Values (descriptive terminology)
O Where does the data come from?
O How is it maintained over time?
O Where do I find it?
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3. OFirst, a Review of Important Definitions:
O Class = A set of similar things
O Domain = Infers that the thing being described is a
member of a particular class (‘The subject is a
________’)
O Range = The object is inferred to be a member of a
specific class
O Constrained = Contains a domain and/or range
O Unconstrained = Not constrained by a domain or range
O CURIE = Syntax for Compact URIs (superset of XML
prefixes)

4. How Does RDA Support
• Applications like RIMMF?
• Users making choices about local usage?
• Mapping services (and the maps
themselves)?
• Vendors trying to build systems using
RDA?

6. Around that corner …
O RDA Registry [http://www.RDAregistry.info]
O Uses OMR, GitHub for easier (and more
automated) maintenance and
documentation
O Contains a comprehensive set of URIs for
many purposes
O Canonical URI, lexical (multi-lingual)
aliases
O Version and release control
O Outputs in many 'flavors' for the use of
many applications
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7. The New Map
June 29, 2014RDA Update, Las Vegas 7

9. Documentation on Elements
O Basic information
on elements:
O Suggested
prefix
O Example URIs
O Changelog
feed
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10. Available Downloads
O HTML build from
JSON--LD
O OMR UI used for
updating
O Download choices
updated with every
change to element
sets
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11. The Important Bits

12. “Cool URIs don’t
change”
—Tim Berners-Lee
Flickr photo by Ludovic Hirlimann

13. URI strategy
O One URI was more than enough, or so
we used to think. We’ve set up multiples
for RDA —Why?
ODevelopers generally want something
they can read easily without a lookup
OVocabulary creators want stability and
maintenance processes that don’t
require a lot of URI changes
OMachines don’t care one way or the
other
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14. Lexical Aliases
O URIs based entirely on labels are not a
good long term strategy for a standard still
developing
O Terminology changes, and labels change
too
O Always redirected after changes
O RDA is an international standard
intended to be available in multiple
languages
O RDA tends to have lots of long element
names, not always ideal for labels
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15. Canonical URIs
O Fixed, stable, always maintained (even as a
redirect)
O Based on numbers or letters and numbers
O Assigned automatically, so no typos
O Language independent (Multiple
languages can be accommodated using
the same canonical URI)
O Change of element itself only necessary if
the definition changes significantly
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16. What’s Next?
O Installing more background processes
to simplify and stabilize operations (and
continue to limit requirements for human
effort )
O Expanding and improving download
options
O More languages
O Improved synchronization with the
Toolkit
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17. AND ...
O Application Profiles (finally?)
O Reflecting the intentions and choices of the
data providers
O Formatted to allow machine-to-machine
interaction (as well as documentation for
humans)
O Enabling [some] validation processes on
usage, constraints and values
O Interoperability without prior agreement
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18. We Welcome Feedback!
O On the RDA-L discussion list
O Email to individuals (see the RDA Registry
home page for addresses)
O Feedback button on every OMR page
O Issues page on the GitHub Project page:
https://github.com/RDARegistry/RDA-
Vocabularies/issues
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