CHICAGO—The Co-Publishers (American Library Association, Canadian Library Association, and CILIP—through its publishing imprint, Facet Publishing) are delighted to announce that the RDA Toolkit is going live on Wednesday, June 23. The Toolkit includes RDA: Resource Description and Access, the long-awaited new unified standard designed for the digital world and an expanding universe of users needing to share metadata.

Benefits of RDA include a structure based on the conceptual models of FRBR (functional requirements for bibliographic data) and FRAD (functional requirements for authority data) to help catalog users find, identify, select, and obtain the information they need more easily; a flexible framework for content description of digital resources that also serves the needs of libraries organizing traditional resources; a better fit with emerging database technologies, enabling institutions to introduce efficiencies in data capture and storage retrieval; and an evolution of the cataloging principles from AACR2, with rules carried over or adapted to the RDA model.

The content of RDA has been developed in a collaborative process led by the Joint Steering Committee (JSC). The project is overseen by the Committee of Principals representing the American Library Association, Canadian Library Association, Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP), Library of Congress, Library and Archives Canada, British Library, and National Library of Australia.

The RDA Toolkit offers a one-stop resource for implementing RDA, with ongoing improvements and additions. Highlights at launch include RDA instructions that are searchable and browseable; AACR2 Rule Number Search of RDA instructions; workflows, mappings (tools to customize the RDA instruction set to support organizational training and processes); two views of RDA content—by table of contents and by element set; AACR2; and various tools to help evaluate and implement RDA, make cataloging decisions based on principles, increase efficiency, facilitate collaboration, and help position the community for the future by making bibliographic data accessible on the Web.

To date, more than 1,600 institutions and individual users have signed up for the free open-access period through August 31, 2010. A double-user offer is in place for those who subscribe at any site license level to the RDA Toolkit before August 31, 2011 to help institutions during the evaluation and initial implementation of RDA, when their users are likely to need more frequent concurrent access.

The informational website at www.rdatoolkit.org offers ongoing updates on the product and how to purchase it (including print components due to launch later this summer); consortial and group subscription information; training and classroom access; sign-up for the open-access period; webinar archives; an RDA training calendar; presenter/trainer materials; pricing in the major currencies; and more.