On October 23, 2015 the Archives Association of British Columbia held a Roundtable on the future of the RAD (Rules for Archival Description). The roundtable was also available as a webcast and participants could send questions via email or following using the hashtag #rethinkRAD.
I stumbled across the hashtag on twitter and ended up watching most of the webcast. It was a lively discussion that touched on some of the problems with RAD as a national descriptive standard.
The Canadian Council of Archives is currently seeking input from the Canadian archival community while it develops a plan to revise and update RAD. There have been no revisions to RAD since 2008 and the standard does not currently address the descriptive needs of digital records. This roundtable was part of this process and included Richard Dancy from CCA.
It was an interesting discussion that highlighted the diversity of opinions in the archival profession about RAD and the need for more open consultation around descriptive standards. Here’s a Storify of some of the tweets which resonated most with me during the webcast. I believe AABC plans on publishing something to summarize the roundtable as well.