Rewording of RDA: Resource Description and Access

At its August 24 meeting, the RDA Committee of Principals requested that ALA Publishing work with the Joint Steering Committee (JSC) and the U.S Test Committee to formulate a plan for rewording RDA and also to define the role of the copy editor.

The Co-Publishers of RDA: Resource Description and Access released "The Plan for the Rewording of RDA and the Role of the Copy Editor", which details the editorial steps necessary to reword RDA. It further sets a goal of submitting, no later than June 2012, five chapters for review by the JSC first and then by the U.S Test Committee.

Single Search: The Quest for the Holy Grail

Prescott, Leah, and Ricky Erway. Single Search: The Quest for the Holy Grail Dublin, OH: OCLC Research, 2011.At: http://www.oclc.org/research/publications/library/2011/2011-17.pdf

Following a series of workshops, OCLC Research organized a working group of nine institutions who implemented the single search box. This 29-page report summarizes the discussions among the nine institutions, covering institutional considerations, technological factors, metadata and access issues.

Library of Congress Preparing for RDA

The Policy and Standards Division, part of the Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate at the Library of Congress, is launching a new website as the Library prepares for RDA. The site is located at: http://www.loc.gov/aba/rda/.

There are links to training documents, presentations, exercises, and examples of records as well as to other RDA related sites. Many more links will be added as items are created, edited, and updated as preparations for RDA proceed. The page originally created for LC documentation related to the US RDA Test will no longer be maintained. Links from that site will be migrated to the new site over time as appropriate.

Questions may be sent to:
Policy and Standards Division
Email: LChelp4rda@loc.gov

(Reposted from George Prager's post on the OBS and TS lists)

Permalink service for authority data now available at LC

Today, the Library of Congress announced an expansion of its LCCN Permalink Service for the Library's name and subject authority records. These persistent URLs are based on the Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN). As with bibliographic records, LCCN Permalinks are displayed on authority record entries in LC Authorities.

Information regarding how they work, how to create them, and other additional information on this service is available on the LCCN Permalink FAQ. Specific questions can also be sent to the Library of Congress through Ask-A-Librarian.

NISO Recommended Practice on Test Modes for SUSHI Servers Issued for a Trial Ending January 31, 2012

Baltimore, MD, August 1, 2011 - The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) announced the availability of the recommended practice Providing a Test Mode for SUSHI Servers (NISO RP-13-201x) for a trial use period ending January 31, 2012.

The Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative (SUSHI) Protocol is a NISO standard (ANSI/NISO Z39.93-2007) that automates the retrieval of COUNTER usage statistics by libraries. The process of developing a SUSHI client requires testing against the SUSHI servers where usage data is expected to be harvested. The new Recommended Practice describes how content providers can easily provide test areas to prospective users of their SUSHI server without providing live, usually confidential, data or placing undue strains on their production servers.

The draft Recommended Practice and an online comment form are available at: www.niso.org/workrooms/sushi/server/. All content providers who provide COUNTER usage statistics are encouraged to implement the recommendations during the trial and provide their feedback.