Please excuse any cross-posting RDA update - April 30 2010 This is the first in a series of updates on RDA from the National Library of New Zealand. These updates will be posted on the CatSig and Nzlibs listservs and they will also be available on the Describe NZ wiki http://www.describe.org.nz Resource Description and Access (RDA), the planned successor to AACR2, is due for release in June 2010. There will be a free trial period for the RDA toolkit until August 31st 2010. There is no information available on prices for Australasian subscribers at this stage. Information on the trial period, subscription options for North American subscribers, including groups, consortia and print editions, are available at http://www.rdatoolkit.org/home The U.S. national libraries are conducting an evaluation of RDA with the participation of cataloguers from a number of other North American libraries. The results of this evaluation will not be available before March 2011. General information on the test process is available at http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/rda/ For more specific details of policy decisions and training for the RDA test see http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/RDAtest/rdatest.html OCLC will be implementing the MARC changes related to RDA so that the testing can be carried out using OCLC Connexion. Information on RDA and OCLC is available at http://www.oclc.org/rda/default.htm A summary of the MARC changes associated with RDA can be seen at http://www.loc.gov/marc/RDAinMARC29.html The National Library of Australia and the Australian Committee on Cataloguing are participants in the RDA development. Information on RDA with an Australian perspective is available at http://www.nla.gov.au/lis/stndrds/grps/acoc/rda.html We do not anticipate implementing RDA at the National Library of New Zealand until the completion of the American evaluation because of the impact of that evaluation on our main suppliers of bibliographic records. However, as planning progresses, we will keep New Zealand libraries informed of all developments. One of our first tasks, after the release of RDA, will be to identify rules with options and alternatives and make policy decisions for National Library cataloguers to follow. These decisions will be made available to all New Zealand libraries. Thank you to those librarians who took part in the RDA Training Needs Survey. We are currently looking at the data from that survey and will make the results available as a summary in May. To view RDA drafts and other associated documentation check the RDA website at http://www.rda-jsc.org/index.html Regards Chris Todd Chris (Christine) Todd Team Leader, Cataloguing Team 1, Content Services, National Library of New Zealand. Telephone: (04) 474 3093 Fax: (04) 474 3161 Email: chris.todd@natlib.govt.nz