In the days of AACR2 and MARC 21, the distinction between a rules standard and a format standard seemed to be straightforward: The rules standard provided instructions on which pieces of information are relevant, and how to build and provide them. The format standard then accommodated these pieces, creating structured elements in a defined technical framework so that information could be created, stored and communicated.
Nowadays, the line between rules standards and format standards seems to be blurred. Based on relatively new models, the standard "Resource Description and Access" not only provides instructions in a toolkit, but adds blocks for handling the information on its own, e.g. as "RDA in RDF" data. On the other hand, "BIBFRAME" was developed, one of the goals being to define a successor to the MARC 21 format. Based on a model with a slightly different approach, it aims to cover different rules standards, among which RDA is the most prominent one. Both RDA and BIBFRAME are based on Linked Data principles, but they have chosen different paths.
In my lightning talk I share some observations, from a German perspective, collected over some years of active participation in MARC 21 standardization and BIBFRAME experimentation, as a bystander of the FRBR and RDA development, and still as a newbie in Linked Data. There are more questions than answers.