The metadata landscape in the cultural heritage community has evolved significantly since MODS and MADS were first designed. At this point it appears there is value in a clearly and intentionally articulated formal data model to define these formats, upon which can be defined various encoding options. The expression of a data model both in a textual form for human consumption, and as RDF classes and properties are common techniques in this community, and upon initial analysis both of these appear to be a fruitful direction for MODS and MADS. It is likely that a formal application profile for the encoding of bibliographic information would be beneficial to current MODS implementers as well.
This work is planned to occur in stages:
Many features of MODS exist in close or loose matches in other RDF vocabularies. We hope to achieve maximum flexibility by defining all significant classes and properties implied by the existing XML encoding in a MODS RDF namespace, but also making large numbers of connections to other vocabularies (BIBO, ISBD in RDF, FRBR in RDF, RDA in RDF, etc.).