11.14 RDA Toolkit essentials

Editor's Notes

• #2: Hello and welcome to: RDA Toolkit EssentialsMy name is James Hennelly, and I and my colleagues at ALA Digital Reference, Melissa Wood, Troy Linker and Dan Kaplan, will guide you through the basics of using RDA Toolkit.This presentation will be recorded and available at rdatoolkit.org/essentials. This slide presentation will also be archived there.
• #3: You can ask questions via the chat box, be sure to chat all for questions. My colleague Melissa Wood will collect the question, and we will answer them at the end of the presentation.You can also select people to privately chat. If you experience any technical problems, you should use that feature to contact Dan Kaplan about such issues.We will address all questions at the end of the webinar.
• #4: I think most of you are aware that RDA is the new cataloging standard created with the intention of succeeding AACR2. I’m not going to go into a lot of detail regarding RDA itself, but it is important to note two key aspects of RDA in regard to using RDA Toolkit. Bib description, not display. RDA explains what information to record about an item. But it will not tell you how to display the title, edition, or publication statements. You should follow your institution’s preference, most likely ISBDRDA and thus RDA Toolkit take their structure from FRBR, and from what we have heard from trainers and testers, a comfort level with basic FRBR and FRAD concepts is essential to RDA cataloging.
• #5: The FRBR entities (and FRAD) provide the structural foundation of RDA are crucial to navigating the RDA TOC. RDA is about describing these entities and identifying the relationships between these entities.
• #6: Much more information is available at our website, the JSC and IFLA websites, the LC and other national library websites.
• #7: RDA is the primary document on RDA Toolkit. RDAToolkit is the best way to interact with the RDA standard.
• #8: Here are the documents that you will currently find on RDA Toolkit. Of course, we hope to add more in the future. We will also be adding links to other off-site documents.
• #9: Here is some of the information you can find on the RDA Toolkit site.
• #10: Solo-User subscriptions are appropriate for small libraries with a cataloging staff of one. It comes with only one profile. This is the most affordable option. Institutional subscriptions are for those with cataloging staffs of two or more. The institutional sub allows for an unlimited number of profiles. Can also purchase concurrent users, which is similar to owning multiple holdings of a book—there is a limited number but the item can be checked out by a whole range of people.There is lots of information on pricing on the website. Rates vary and there is special pricing for consortial purchases. Contact us at rdatoolkit@ala.org if you have query about consortial purchases.
• #11: Solo-User: logs in with User Nameand password, only one user and one profileInstitutional: can log in 3 different ways, concurrent users (depending on purchase), unlimited number of profilesAuthentication verifies that you are a subscriber to RDA Toolkit, and allows you to access the primary documents on RDA Toolkit. It does not allow you access to private documents created by you or your colleagues.
• #12: Here’s is the screen you see when you arrive at RDA Toolkit. The site should work with the commonly used versions of IE, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome browsers.The login is in the upper right. Note the blank blue space in the corner. This is an indicator that you are not logged in or “authenticated”. Enter your Account ID in the field labeled Account ID and your associated password in the password field. Click login.
• #13: Here you can see that you are authenticated into RDA Toolkit by the appearance of your institution name at the upper right corner. In my case the institution is ALA. Now you have access to the major documents on RDA Toolkit and publically shared user-created content. But you do not have the ability to access private content or to create new content. To gain full access to RDA Toolkit functionality you need to log into (or create) a profile.Here’s how to do that. The User Name field has been replaced with a field labeled Profile Name. Here is where you enter login to your profile. Your login is your personally selected profile name and password. Note the Email Password button that now appears here.
• #14: Create workflows, mapping, bookmarks. Share your content with others at your institution. In the future there will be a greater list of user preferences that must be set through your profile.
• #15: Here’s the form for creating a profile. It is simple and straight forward. It will only take a minute to fill out.
• #16: Here you can see that I am logged into my profile by the large “welcome” in the upper right corner. Now is a good time to look at the User menu. You can see that the user menu now has a “Log Out” button. The support button will take you to the support center where you can open a ticket for any problem you are having with the site. My Profile will open the menu that allows you to manage your profile login and personal preferences and to access your personal content. Here you will find your bookmarks, saved searches, workflows, and mappings. We’ll cover the Search buttons in a little bit.
• #17: Here are the primary navigation features of RDA Toolkit. You can browse through the expanding/collapsing TOC in the left column or through the fully expanded print TOC.
• #18: In the January 2012 we introduced icons to the RDA Toolkit navigation. Here’s the full list.
• #19: If you mouse over an icon, you will see it’s label.
• #20: By breaking chapters into pages we sped up the loading times dramatically. The pages are listed in the top left corner of the text section of the display. There are Previous and Next Page buttons. Users can also click directly to a page within a chapter. Brackets around a page number indicate the page you are currently viewing.
• #21: Now here we can see by clicking on + or – you can expand and collapse the browse tree of RDA.
• #22: Click TOC and you will see an online version of the print TOC. This is a flat, fully-expanded (to the X.X level) TOC like the one you find in the print version. It is fully linked as well. This is free content that can be downloaded as a PDF and printed for offline use.
• #23: View Text let’s you choose between full text, Basic Instructions, and “Core” instructions. You can make the display cleaner and speed up scrolling by hiding examples.
• #24: Synch TOC is a good tool for when you lose track of where you are. In this screen shot you can see several important aspects to the RDA display. In the yellow are examples of the instructions. You can turn these on and off from the View Text menu. You can also see blue RDA links, green LCPS links and brown glossary links. These links are of course an efficient nav tool.
• #25: Also in the left column nav are two important tabs. Switching from a document under one of these tabs to RDA means simply clicking the tab, you will not lose your place in either document.Tools tab: RDA Element Set—instructions by FRBR/FRAD entities; RDA Mappings are JSC between RDA and MARC and MODS; User created workflow and Mappings (we’ll cover these later); ERD and Schemas are diagrams and machine readable representations of data elements. These last two are really tools for data developers and IT staff. Resources tab: AACR2 (an entry point to RDA) and LCPS (provides added information for applying RDA instructions—RDA equivalent of LCRI); Other Resources concludes offsite documents and tools such as Cataloger’s Desktop, Open Metadata Registry, MARC Standards, etc.
• #26: Here’s a look inside the Element Set. It organizes instructions around an attribute or relationship.
• #27: Here’s an image of the RDA Mapping. It is fairly detailed, but also a bit of a work in progress.
• #28: Here’s a look at LCPS. Note the green tint that helps identify that you are in LCPS.
• #29: A look a the Examples document. This is a free PDF that anyone can download and print out.
• #30: A look at the Update History section and its Instruction Archive.
• #31: The Update Summary.
• #32: In this section we’ll go over the quick search, the advanced search, and the search results display.
• #33: RDA Quick Search searches only RDA content. The simplest and best search to do is an RDA number search. Simply type in an RDA number and hit search (or enter) and you will be taken directly to the instruction. A search of 6.2.2.10 takes you directly to instruction 6.2.2.10.Second best is to use RDA terminology to get better search results. Note that this rule is for preferred title. This would be called a uniform title in AACR2. Index is a good place to find AACR2 terms and determine their RDA equivalents.
• #34: You can put quotation marks around an RDA number search to find cross references and children. By adding quotations marks you are telling the search engine to look at this sequence of numbers, and you will get hits for that sequence that are not x-refs to the original search. In this example you can see that results 2-4 are children; results 5 and 6 are x-refs. Search engines are what they are, and you will get some chaff with this type of search. Try “uniform title” with phrasing as well. It will take you to a useful table.
• #36: Using quotation marks in this manner is called phrasing, and it can be a valuable search technique. A search of variant title without phrasing yields 113 results, with phrasing it drops to 69. Try “uniform title” with phrasing as well. It will take you to a useful table.
• #37: Use the wildcard, an asterisk, to improve recall. Some systems use a ? For wildcard, but here we are using an *. A search of abbreviation returns 31 results, but if I search abbrev* I get 93 results including hits on abbreviate, abbreviated, abbreviation and abbreviations.
• #38: The Advanced search menu allows you to filter by document type or metadata. Expand the Document TOC list to broaden search or focus it. Instruction types were tagged by JSC members and should prove to be a useful way filtering to get a precise results. When you find that excellent set of results, do save it. Filtering for “Core” not get you the Core Elements of the RDA data model, but rather the instructions that the JSC considers to “core” to understanding.[Try Preferred Title search with Moving Images Only filter]
• #40: You can search RDA by AACR2 number, though we recommend that you truncate and add a wildcard to the AACR2 number you want to search to improve your number of hits. [Search 12.1b8 for change in title proper for a Continuing Resource and then truncate with wild card to expand results.] Note the first search of a specific AACR2 number gets 2 hits, and below is with the truncation and wildcard getting 16 hits.
• #41: When you find that excellent set of results, do save it.[Try creating a saved search for "period of activity" "access point“ which will give a nice collection of instructions regarding period of activity for a person.]
• #42: Note the Sort option in the upper right of the search results display. The default is by relevance, but you can now sort by document order., as shown here. This will sort RDA by rule number, and other documents by the order that the appear in the Advance Search menu. At the bottom of the page you can also see the nav for the results page. Results display 25 per page. You can use next and previous to move between results. The drop down menu allows you to jump to a specific page of results.
• #43: Describe the next and previous hit keys. They exist only within a chapter. Must go back to the results list to move to different chapter. The difference between hits and results is that hits occur every time a search term is matched, results are the items (instructions) listed in your search results.
• #44: Workflows are a powerful tool. These documents can serve as a cheat sheet, an internal policy statement, or a how-to. Most of the current workflows serve as guides to RDA cataloging of specific formats.You can create your own mappings to schema or other standards. This is rather complicated work.Bookmarks are not shared and serve as your own personal notes on where a certain instruction is and how you might apply it.
• #45: Workflows can be a powerful tool for a step by step guide for cataloging a specific format type. Here you can see the “TOC” in the workflow for the LC Simple Book workflow. Each step listed links to a specific point in the document.
• #46: Here is a screen shot of the middle of the workflow from LC’s simple book workflow for MARC. Note links to rules and glossary and RDA element set view.
• #47: Here is the Create Workflow form. Give the Workflow a name–follow conventions of naming your institution first in the name then the subject of the workflow. You can Create New or Copy Existing. I recommend copying an existing WF that you have found really useful. But remember to credit the creator of the WF you copy.
• #48: Here’s the workflow workspace. It has the look o a Word cod, but it is an HTML editor and does not function exactly like Word. You will be asked if you want to share a Workflow globally, locally (meaning it is shared only within your institutional account), or not at all.Mapping basically works the same way. The workspace and sharing rule are the same.
• #49: Here is the manage bookmarks form. Use it to add bookmarks, navigate to bookmarks, or edit (delete or reset).[Search “uniform title” and create a bookmark for table.]
• #50: Here’s the add bookmark form. Give title and note.
• #51: Here’s an example of a note in the bookmark. Mouse over the bookmark to see the note.
• #52: Where do I start working in RDA Toolkit?RDA Element Set is a good place to start if you have questions about a specific attribute or relationship. If you have a familiarity with AACR2 or MARC you might be comfortable approaching RDA cataloging through AACR2, Examples, or the RDA mappings.Workflows are potentially the most powerful tool for supplying an entry into RDA cataloging.
• #53: Here’s a look inside the Element Set. It organizes instructions around an attribute or relationship. This can be a good starting point if you have questions about a specific attribute. MARC linking in Connexion and Cataloger’s desktop and others will takes you to ESV.
• #54: AACR2 has links to related RDA rules. This is the same data set used by the “search RDA by AACR2 number” in Advanced search. Also, consider the Index which includes AACR2 terms and will direct you to RDA equivalent.
• #55: Here’s an image of the RDA Mapping. It is fairly detailed, but also a bit of a work in progress.
• #56: Workflows can be a powerful tool for a step by step guide for cataloging a specific format type.
• #58: Blog includes tips, important announcements, interviews, linksDev blog covers what is in work for RDA Toolkit and updates on releases. An important place to voice your ideas about how to improve RDA Toolkit.
• #60: Thanks for attending. A recording of this webinar will be available on the Essentials page at RDA Toolkit. Essentials will be back in two months. Hopefully you found this webinar useful and will recommend Essentials to your colleagues. And of course feel free to come back if you have a new question. Also, you can always email us at rdatoolkit@ala.org.