RSC Chair and Chair Elect to Support Official RDA Implementation
The RSC is extremely pleased to be starting 2026 with its new Chair Elect, Robert L. Maxwell (pictured) in place. As previously reported, we are confident that with Robert working alongside Chair Renate Behrens, we have the best possible leadership in place for the next two years when most members of the RDA cataloguing community will be implementing Official RDA. The Countdown Clock for the retirement of the live version of Original RDA will begin in May 2026 and run until May 2027. After that the RDA Board has stated that although an archive of the text will be available, it will not be interactive and, therefore, will be suitable for the use of cataloguing historians rather than working cataloguers.
Throughout 2026 as Chair and Chair Elect and 2027 as Chair and Past Chair, Renate and Robert will lead the RSC in a series of outreach and educational activities to support the community in the transition to Official RDA, including continuing to host presentations during RSC Public Sessions by institutions about their implementations; webinars; speaking at events across the Regions; and a special issue of Open Access journal Catalogue & Index to coincide with the Countdown Clock starting.
You can stay up-to-date on implementation activities on the Implementing Official RDA page; the Education and Orientation Officer's list on the Learning Resources page; and by watching recordings on the RDA Toolkit YouTube channel.
If you are beginning to get to grips with RDA, the Learning Resources page is a good place to start. Amongst other useful materials, you will find the Template RDA teaching slides. These slides were developed for educators to adapt, customize, and use in various teaching settings where RDA is being introduced to students. These slides are being made freely available for use, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
If you are organising an event and would like to request an in-person or online speaker on RDA development or the implementation of Official RDA, please contact RSCChair@rdatoolkit.org in the first instance.