RDA – Jan. 15, 2010 – http://connect.ala.org/node/92572
Disclaimer: One of our Backstage staff (Maritta Coppieters) attended the all-day training session at ALA, but then also had to jump on a plane to England, so these updates are based on conversations I had with Maritta before she left:
- LC is making allowance to put the authority control number in the heading in a $0, so that the heading will link to a specific authority record. LC isn’t going to implement this right now and will still be linking with the actual authority record, but it is something they are planning.
- Lots of rules are going away and becoming more intuitive.
- Old Latin abbreviations are being discarded.
- The rule of thumb is: Key it like you see it.
- The focus isn’t so much on editing and conforming things to a set of rules, more like representing the material as you find it. The idea is that if you download content from a publisher and the book title has an abbrevaition, you leave it the way it is.
- Trust the item in hand rather than applying a set of rules to it.
- LC will publish RDA by June ALA. Then we have 3 months to train and practice. Then another 3 months to test specific scenarios and report back to LC. Then LC will take 3 months to write up the results (Q1 2011).
The RDA Toolkit price has been set at: $325 for the first user, $55 for each additional user. This price is set to be an annual subscription, rather than a one-time fee. As a comparison, the AACR2 life-time price is around $95 per user (non-members).
More information regarding the RDA Toolkit can be found here:
http://celeripedean.wordpress.com/2010/01/19/the-rda-toolkit/
Stay tuned as we prepare a more comprehensive update about the direction RDA is heading and how we are a part of it.