Where does RDA fit?
RDA, like AACR, will primarily be a content standard. It will focus on data elements to describe a resource’s content and physical carrier. It will also cover the choice and formulation of access points and citations. For many years AACR data elements have been packaged into MARC records to enable record sharing. However, RDA will remain independent of any communication format, and so it can be used with other encoding standards.
RDA won’t cover subject description or classification, or how to create identifiers. As with AACR, those elements will continue to be covered by other content standards. RDA will also be built on the FRBR and FRAR conceptual models.
The major new content to be added to RDA is on reflecting bibliographic relationships, and on authority control.