What is an RDA subject? Gordon Dunsire Presented to SAC meeting, ALA Midwinter, Chicago, 2 Feb 2015

Overview  The JSC agreed at its meeting in Washington, D.C., November 3-7, 2014, to add the high-level relationship “Subject” to RDA. It will be applicable only to the Work entity. Subject relationship designators will be accommodated in a new appendix M in RDA Toolkit.  Reasoning behind the decisions and intended impact on the utility of RDA.  Alignment with the FRBR and linked data (Dublin Core Abstract Model) models.  Changes to the RDA element set, relationship designators, and RDA Registry.  Treatment of embedded descriptions/citations.

Consolidated FR model and subjects FRBRFRADFRSAD Time Group 3 Subjects Concept Object Event Place  Entities not confined to context of subject

WorkThemaNomen has as subject has appellation FRSAD and RDA as linked data Thing is same as WEMIPFC has type has title has name

Work (has) subject RDA high-level subject relationship Anything WEMIPFC (is) subject of Primary Secondary

 description of (work)  analysis of (work)  commentary on (work)  critique of (work)  evaluation of (work)  review of (work) “A work described by a describing work.” A work that is the subject of a work. J.2.3 Descriptive Work Relationships

 description of (expression)  Etc. J.3.3 Descriptive Expression Relationships Work has subject E is subject of Expression has subject E is subject of Re-defined as cross-entity designators

Appendix M: Relationship designators Cross-entity: the designators relate different entities (except for Work has subject Work)  [is] description of (expression)  [is] analysis of (expression)  [is] commentary on (expression)  … WorkExpression [has] subject [expression] Form or genre?

Expression [is] described in E [is] description of Distinguishing descriptions W Catalog, etc. Issue, etc. W “…” [has] reference to a published citation ALA to prepare proposal

“Subject” is not an entity “Subject” is a relationship between a Work and something else: Work “(has) subject” something something “(is) subject (of)” Work Reciprocal relationship: Bottom line

Thank you!   6JSC/ALA/31  Subject Relationship Element in RDA Chapter 23  6JSC/TechnicalWG/3  High-level subject relationship in RDA  RDA Toolkit release, April 2015