OCLC issues discussion paper: "Incorporating RDA practices into WorldCat"

OCLC has issued a discussion paper entitled "Incorporating RDA practices into WorldCat," proposing policies and actions that may be implemented as OCLC moves toward incorporating RDA practices into WorldCat. The paper outlines specific changes that may be made to pre-RDA records to reflect RDA practice, but without changing the indication of the rules under which the catalog record was initially created (Leader/18). If approved, some of the changes allowed would include converting Latin abbreviations to their spelled-out English equivalents (e.g., "et al." could be changed to "and others;" 336, 337 and 338 fields could be added while removing GMDs; and addtional access points called for under RDA could be added to pre-RDA records. The discussion paper may be read in its entirety at: http://www.oclc.org/us/en/rda/discussion.htm. OCLC member libraries are invited to submit comments on the proposed policies and actions by April 15, 2012. Comments may be sent to: rdapolicy@oclc.org.