The Committee of Principals (COP) and the Joint Steering Committee for the Development of RDA (JSC) held independent and joint meetings last week in Chicago. The outcomes of the JSC and COP meetings will be published on the JSC website in the coming weeks. The JSC considered over 50 proposals for revisions to RDA. Approved proposals will be added to RDA and released to RDA Toolkit in April 2013. During the weeklong meetings the RDA co-publishers updated COP and JSC regarding important RDA-related issues, including releases to RDA Toolkit, the rewording of RDA as requested by the U.S. RDA Test Committee, and an update of the print RDA. A summary of the discussion and outcomes of issues related to projects led by the co-publishers of RDA follows.

2013 Release Schedule

The RDA co-publishers announced the 2013 RDA Toolkit release schedule that will include six releases to RDA Toolkit. Releases typically contain updates to content and metadata, enhancements to RDA Toolkit functionality, and fixes to existing bugs. The 2013 releases will occur on the second Tuesday of even numbered months. The 2013 RDA Update, which contains the revisions that resulted from the November JSC meeting, will be part of the April RDA Toolkit release.

2013 RDA Toolkit Release Dates

• February 12
• April 8
• June 11
• August 13
• October 8
• December 10

Print RDA

The RDA co-publishers announced that a revised edition of Print RDA will be released in June 2013. The updated Print RDA will be a full accumulation and include the 2012 and 2013 RDA updates, all fast track changes through June 2013, and the complete rewording. The RDA co-publishers have decided to publish a revised edition instead of an update packet due to the number of pages effected by changes to RDA (JSC Updates, reworded chapters, and numerous fast track changes) since the first print version was released. The changes are distributed throughout RDA such that 90% of the pages need to be replaced. This does not mean that 90% of RDA has changed, rather that 90% of the pages of Print RDA are impacted in some small way by the changes. It is anticipated that future updates to Print RDA will not be so large. Going forward, the co-publishers plan to release Print RDA update packets annually in June.

Rewording

ALA Publishing provided an update on the progress of the rewording of the RDA instructions and submitted a schedule for the release of the reworded chapters. It is anticipated that the last group of reworded chapters will be released to RDA Toolkit in April 2013, and the full reworded content of RDA will be part of the June 2103 update of the print RDA.

The rewording process has been a collaborative project, involving the copy editor, Chris Oliver, the JSC, and the US RDA Test Committee. The copy editor was charged with improving the readability of RDA, without changing the meaning or intent of the instructions. All reworded chapters prepared by the copy editor are reviewed by the JSC, and the first group of reworded chapters (9-11, 6) were submitted to the US RDA Test Committee and some of the test participants for evaluation of their readability. As the meaning of the instructions has not been changed, it was decided by the involved parties that there will be no constituency review of the reworded chapters.

Essential RDA

The JSC and ALA Publishing agreed to pursue the development of Essential RDA (working title), an abridged version of RDA based upon the Core Element and Basic Instruction filters found on RDA Toolkit.