Best Practices for Music Cataloging Using RDA and MARC21, v1.7 (April 11, 2017)

See the original RDA Toolkit for access. This document is no longer updated as the original Toolkit has been frozen; however, these guidelines should continue to be applied in current practice until such time as the new RDA text is approved for use by the Library of Congress and Program for Cooperative Cataloging. 

Interim Updates

Apply the following interim revisions to the original MLA Best Practices for RDA until such time as the new RDA text is approved for use in cataloging.

• Form of musical notation and MARC updates to fields 348 and 546

Supplements to Best Practices for Music Cataloging Using RDA and MARC21

• Supplement 1 (v1.81): Guidelines for Describing and Encoding Attributes of Audio Recording Carriers
• Supplement 2 (v1.9): Recording Parallel Data Using ISBD in MARC and Minimally Punctuated MARC
• Supplement 3 (v1.8): Complete MARC Record Examples

Draft Best Practices for Music Cataloging in the Official RDA Toolkit (March 2022- )

See the official RDA Toolkit for access. Additional guidance and context for these recommendations is provided in the documentation below. The draft Best Practices are available for public feedback but should not be applied until such time as the new RDA text is approved for use in cataloging by the Library of Congress and Program for Cooperative Cataloging.

Supporting Documentation

• Music Library Association RDA Metadata Guidance Documentation  v0.92 (September 2022)
• Draft MLA Application Profile  

See also the Supplements to Best Practices for Music Cataloging Using RDA and MARC21, linked above.

Feedback on Draft Documentation

The Content Standards Subcommittee welcomes feedback on draft documentation.

• Feedback on the MLA Best Practices 
• Feedback on the MLA RDA Metadata Guidance 
• Feedback on other MLA RDA documentation