3R Project Status Report #1

This is the first of what will be a series of status updates on the progress of the 3R project. You may recall from the October announcement that 3R stands for the RDA Toolkit Restructure and Redesign. This project will end with the rollout of a new RDA Toolkit in April 2018 that will include significant improvements to both the standard and to the Toolkit. Since the announcement the following important steps have been taken.

• Several online and inperson planning meetings with RDA Toolkit developers Dakota Systems and GVPI.
• The 3R Project User Group have collected and reviewed user stories and submitted suggested priorities to the RDA Steering Committee (RSC).
• Discussion of 3R Project goals with the RSC in Frankfurt this past November to establish goals and objectives for the project.
• Public discussions at ALA Midwinter Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia. 

From these meeting and events the following decisions have been made.

• RDA will be edited to bring it in compliance with the IFLA-Library Reference Model (LRM). More on RSC's plans related to LRM is available on their website.
• RDA Toolkit data will be converted to the data model DITA, and the current file structure will be broken up at the element level. This will allow for greater modularity and flexibility in the display of RDA instructions and other Toolkit content.
• RDA Toolkit's reporting of revisions and changes to RDA will be expanded and enhanced to include reports for every release and for each language version. The 3R Project will explore the inclusion of "track changes" versions of affected text in a release in these reports as well as a brief explanation of the reason for the change.
• The User Group and others have expressed the need to better integrate the content of the Toolkit. The 3R Project will will work with UX (user experience) experts to determine a presentation of instructions that is instructive for the user and brings together national, local and personal notes without requiring users to click to multiple locations on the site.
• Along with integration of content, personalization has emerged as a priority for the the 3R Project. The goal is to allow users to set preferences for the documents they want most readily available and to set preferences for how the display space is used.

Finally, one of the key needs that emerged from the Midwinter Meetings in Atlanta, was that for a grace period that would allow libraries to adjust to the changes coming with the 3R Project and LRM implementation. ALA Publishing agreed to keep the current Toolkit up for a year after the roll out of the 3R Project. ALA Publishing is happy to aid the transition in this way, but Toolkit subscribers should be aware of what exactly this means.

• The "old" Toolkit and the "new" Toolkit will have different versions of RDA. The 3R Project is expected to be completed with the April 2018 release. This will include LRM changes and the redesigned website. The "old" site will be frozen to the content of the August 2017 release.
• The "old" Toolkit will not be updated. The August 2017 release content will include translation updates to bring all language versions in line with the April 2017 RDA Update. After the August release there will be no further revisions or changes to the "old" Toolkit. There will be no changes to RDA nor to any policy statements or revision information.
• Any links in local documentation will resolve to the "new" Toolkit or be broken. After the rollout of the 3R Project changes, all links to RDA content will either resolve to the "new" site  or will be broken. If users wish their document links to resolve to the "old" Toolkit, they will need to redo the links.

More meetings and decisions will be coming in the next couple months, and we expect to post a new status report in June.