April 2020 Beta RDA Toolkit Release
On April 29th a new release was published to the RDA Toolkit beta site. The release introduces new features and functionality as well as some relocating of RDA content. For a full explanation of notable changes to the RDA text see Notes on the April 29, 2020 RDA Toolkit Release.
User feedback is vital to the development of the new RDA Toolkit, and user feedback informed changes we made to the Element list display found at the bottom of entity pages. With this release these lists now allow for a deeper and more efficient navigation of elements. The type ahead feature at the start of list has been adjusted to search by keyword instead of by left-anchored match. This will allow users to return related elements such as access point, authorized access points and variant access point. Radio buttons labelled "All", "Attributes", and "Relationships" have been added to the display. These buttons allow users to filter list for attribute elements or relationship elements.
The relationship element list can be further filtered by opening the drop down menu associated with the Relationships label and selecting a range entity. This feature offers an alternative to the Relationship Matrix as a method to review RDA relationship opportunities. To learn more, watch this video demonstration of the feature.
The April release also includes the introduction of policy statements to the beta site. The policy statements included here are essentially a test of the functionality of their display. The British Library and the Library of Congress/Program of Cooperative Cataloging have contributed content for this test. You can find policy statements through the Policies tab on the top menu bar or you can view the policy statements alongside the RDA text. Currently policy statements content can be found with the following pages:
- Expression: content type
- Manifestation: statement of responsibility relating to title proper
- Place: authorized access point for place
- Place: variant access point for place
- Guidance: representative expression (BL only)
- Guidance: guidelines on normalized transcriptions (LC-PCC only)
To view policy statements alongside RDA instructions as shown below, users must have the policy statements turned on in their view (watch a video on how to create views).
There are several features associated with both Policies tab display (also called mirror page display) of policy statements and the right rail display. Watch these demonstration videos for an introduction to the features.
Finally, a new entry on the Resources drop down menu has been added. Community Vocabularies is located just after Revision History on the menu is now the home for material related to abbreviations, terms of rank, books of the Bible and other vocabularies.