In the Home Stretch: final stages of RDA

implementation @ LC

Committee on East Asian LibrariesMarch 2013

Tom Yee

LC Policy & Standards Division

RDA Implementation • Implementation decision for RDA made in June 2011

– contingent on continued progress on recommendations from the US RDA Test

• LC and other US National Libraries announce March 31, 2013 as ‘day one’

• US RDA Test Coordinating Committee has verified completion of recommendations – or convincing evidence that completion is sufficiently on

track

LC’s RDA Training Plan

• Based on the promising progress towards carrying out the recommendations from the US RDA Test Coordinating Committee– Need sufficient time to train large staff– Training plan being set in motion– will be adjusted as

necessary

• Goal: Target RDA implementation Day One: March 31, 2013

• LC’s partner national libraries also targeting early to mid 2013

RDA Prep Web Page

LC-PCC Policy Statements

• PSs are policies for use with RDA– Originally developed for LC catalogers during US RDA

Test as Library of Congress Policy Statements

• October: title change to LC-PCC Policy Statements!– Represents a collaborative set of statements for both LC

and the PCC; with clearer labels for applicability

• Major updates : Nov. 2011, Jan. 2012, April 2012, June 2012, Aug. 2012, Oct. 2012, Dec. 2012

LC-PCC PS Development

• Ideas come from: – LC catalogers – LChelp4RDA questions– PSD staff– PCC libraries– PCC task groups– Some changes to PS are triggered by

changes to RDA

Drafting, Negotiation

• LC review: Policy & Standards Division staff, other experts consulted as needed (e.g., CJK catalogers)

• PCC review: PCC Standing Committee on Standards

• Wiki used to track decision making, agree on wording

PCC SCS Wiki

Ongoing RDA Development• Minor typographical errors, bugs - fixes are

incorporated bi-monthly in RDA Toolkit• Fast Track proposal process• Constituency review of major changes and

discussion papers - Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA

• Re-wording of selected chapters by copy editor

• 3 translations ongoing (French, Spanish, German)

Minor errors

• Who: anyone• Triage: publisher• Coding: JSC secretary or

Toolkit programmers

Time: release schedule

Fast Track

• Who: JSC member

• Wiki vote: JSC

• Coding: JSC secretary

• Time: 1 month/release

August-December 2012 RDA Toolkit Releases

• Approximately 200 changed instructions, examples, glossary entries, etc.

Changes based on error reports, Fast Track actions, and Vocabulary development

88 changes ready for first 2013 Toolkit release

Constituency Review Changes2012

• Who: JSC constituencies & community (57)• Review: all constituencies (over 400 documents)• Finalization: JSC meeting (1 week)• Coding: JSC secretary (214 instructions

impacted)

• Time: August-April

Re-wording of selected RDA chapters

– Chris Oliver, McGill University, copy editor– Review by JSC (all chapters) and US RDA Test

participants (selected chapters)– Rewording being rolled out to the RDA Toolkit each

update: December contained (6, 9, 10, 11) – All chapters expected to be published mid-2013

– Goal: make the instructions clearer to the average cataloger, not to change the instructions themselves. Also includes formatting to break-up long or complicated sentences

Translations and more…

• German, French, Spanish– Multilingual interface coming!

• Additional “policy statements”

• Essential RDA

• Element set registry

• Stay Tuned!

Transitions are hard!

• Be patient with yourself (and your reviewers)

• Don’t forget what you already know

• It’s better to do it right the first time, but if you don’t, it can be fixed

• It will get easier!

As always, questions welcome

LChelp4rda@loc.gov