With the transition from MARC to linked data, how we create and manage bibliographic data is drastically changing. This shift provides increased opportunity to test resource description theory and develop best practices. However, efforts to simultaneously define models for creating native linked data descriptions and crosswalk these models with MARC have resulted in ontological differences between implementers and unique extensions. From the outside looking in this progress may look more like bibliographic chaos than control. This apparent chaos, and the associated experimentation is important for communities to chart a path forward, but also points to a challenge ahead. Ultimately this disparate community innovation must be harnessed and consolidated so that open standards development supports the interoperability of library data.

This paper will focus on modeling differences between RDA and BIBFRAME, recent attempts at MARC to BIBFRAME conversion, and work on BIBFRAME application profiles, in an attempt to define shared purpose and common ground in the manifestation of real world data. Emphasis will be placed on the balance between core standards (RDA, MARC, BIBFRAME) and community based extensions and practice (LC, PCC, LD4P, Share-VDE), and the need for a feedback loop from one to the other.