Q: What are the 336, 337, and 338 fields in RDA?
A: There are three new MARC fields associated with RDA: 336, 337, and 338. These fields are replacing GMDs (General Material Designation), but this is new for books. They indicate the type of material; for example, you are more familiar with GMD in records for electronic resources–you will always see this indicated next to the title in square brackets (e.g., |h [electronic resources]). RDA is replacing this in the 245 and adding this information in these three fields. Also, the 336, 337, and 338 will change depending on the format of the work. For books, we have textual material. So we can now indicate this in the record. To be consistent, this information will now be added to book records.
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