James Hennelly, director of RDA Toolkit, will host a free webinar on December 19th. He will review recent updates to the Toolkit and preview some changes that will appear in the next year. Half the allotted time will be held open for questions from attendees. The webinar will be recorded and posted to the RDA Toolkit YouTube channel.
What's New (and Upcoming) with RDA Toolkit
When: Tuesday, December 19, at 2:00 pm CST
As more libraries and cataloguing communities worldwide signal an intent to adopt the official RDA Toolkit within the next three years, including the international Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC), you too can get ready for the transition. This full-day hands-on workshop led by active PCC and RDA Steering Committee members will teach cataloguers how to read and apply instructions in the official RDA Toolkit, look up RDA-to-MARC mappings, and catalogue a sample item from start to finish.
The North American RDA Committee (NARDAC) Update Forum is an event aimed at bringing together experts in the field of library and information science to present/discuss developments in RDA and RDA related cataloging work. NARDAC invites the RDA Steering Committee (RSC) Chair, Renate Behrens, the representatives of four RSC Working Groups, and a representative of Library of Archives and Canada (LAC) to join 2023 Fall Update Forum. The forum will introduce the RSC working groups, their current work, and their future plans.
A new release was posted to RDA Toolkit last week. The September 2023 release is a minor one in terms of changes to the English text (corrections to typos and formatting, changes for consistency, and fixes of broken links), but there are two significant updates – the introduction of a new alternative Guidance menu and completion of the French language translation of official RDA.
The Oceania region RDA Committee (ORDAC) is pleased to present a series of three webinars exploring concepts from the Official RDA Guidance chapters, presented by ORDAC member and Oceania RSC representative Charlotte Christensen based at the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa.
The RDA Board in consultation with the Copyright Holders of RDA have determined that a hard date for the removal of the original RDA Toolkit website is needed. This determination was made against a backdrop of giving user communities plenty of time for planning in their transition to official RDA. The Board plans to begin a countdown clock in May 2026 (specific date still to be determined), with the removal of the original Toolkit taking place a year later—May 2027. This plan was presented to the RDA Steering Committee last week, and the RSC fully supported this decision.
CORE will present a four-part webinar series “The New and Official RDA Toolkit: A Practical Approach” this month. Originally presented as an in-person preconference for the 2022 Core Forum, this webinar is geared toward catalogers, metadata librarians, and anyone interested in Resource Description and Access (RDA). Core members and non-members are welcome to attend.
ALA Digital Reference's webinar series continued Monday, August 1, 2022 at 11 AM CT/Chicago time with Damian Iseminger's virtual iteration of his #ALAAC22 program RDA Linked Data Forum. Damian presented on how RDA and RDA Toolkit are now optimized for linked data environments in the wake of the 3R Project and answered related questions from the audience live. The webinar recording is now available.
RDA educational programs sponsored by the American Library Association will be presented at ALA Annual in Washington, DC June 24th through June 27th.
A new release of RDA Toolkit was posted on June 22, 2022. It included updates to both the English and Finnish versions of RDA. The changes made to the English text of RDA for this release were almost entirely editorial (correcting typos and other minor corrections). Policy statements from the Library of Congress - Program for Cooperative Cataloging, the British Library and Music Library Association Best Practices were also updated. The Finnish translation of RDA was updated to make it current with the March 2022 release of English RDA.
