The MARC2RDA Project

Table of Contents

• Project Summary
• Deliverables Description
• Project Deliverables
• Community Feedback
• Join Us

Project Summary

This is an independent, volunteer-based project which was initiated in 2021 at the University of Washington Libraries' Cataloging and Metadata Services Department. The project's purpose is to create an open source transformation tool based on a robust mapping between the MARC21 Bibliographic format and the LRM/RDA/RDF ontology.

This project builds on the work of the RDA/MARC 21 Alignment Task Force within the RSC Technical Working Group, specifically their RDA-to-MARC mapping.

Phase I of the MARC2RDA Project set out to map and convert MARC21 Bibliographic fields considered core in the PCC Bibliographic Standard Record (BSR) for single-expression manifestations and simple augmentation aggregate manifestations. This phase concluded on September 30, 2025.

The second phase of the project is set to begin in November 2025 and will cover resource types not included in Phase I, data provenance data, and the MARC21 Bibliographic fields considered core in the PCC CONSER Standard Record (CSR).

Deliverables Description

Phase I

Phase I of the MARC2RDA Project produced:

• A GitHub repository, including its Phase I deliverables:
  • A mapping between MARC21 Bibliographic (for Phase I resource types) and LRM/RDA/RDF:
    • Mapping spreadsheets in .csv form
    • List of MARC21 Bibliographic fields and subfields excluded from the project's mapping
    • Approved URIs Table
  • XSLT stylesheets containing transformation code based on the mapping spreadsheets and additional tables
  • Instructions for running the transformation code, including brief guidelines for pre- and post-processing data
  • Phase I documentation, including:
    • Decisions Index: Mapping & Transformation
    • Decisions Index: Workflow
    • Comprehensive write-up of Phase I
    • Background document on classification and subject data
• Transformed MARC21 Bibliographic records output as LRM/RDA/RDF, including subsets of records from the Library of Congress, University of Washington Libraries, and National Library of New Zealand. The full set of transformed records is available as a triplestore.
• A web-based transformation tool for use with small sets of records, which does not require users to download or run the full XSLT transform on their own.
• Feedback from the project that will be sent directly to the RSC and PCC.

Project Deliverables

Community Feedback

We welcome the community to provide feedback using the Community Feedback Template in the project GitHub repository. To see feedback provided to the project, view the Community Feedback issues.

If you do not have a GitHub account but would like to submit feedback to the project, you may want to add a replacement link here for your preferred non-GitHub contact or form.

Join Us

We are actively recruiting participants for Phase II of the MARC2RDA Project. We are particularly looking for folks with expertise in:

• Writing SPARQL queries
• GraphDB display
• XSLT
• Wikibase Cloud

About Phase II

Phase II will expand the project's scope to include complex aggregates, serial and other diachronic works, collection works, data provenance data, and the MARC21 Bibliographic fields considered core in the PCC CONSER Standard Record (CSR).

To contribute, please email Crystal Yragui at crystalyragui@gmail.com.