RDA Toolkit price change

The publishers of the RDA Toolkit have announced a changed price model effective January 1, 2014.  The new pricing continues to be calculated per user, but the numbers of users are grouped differently.  It is claimed that the new pricing will make the RDA Toolkit "more accessible for small cataloging departments" and "more fairly distributing the cost across all sizes of institutions". 

An analysis posted on the RDA-L discussion list verifies price reductions for subscriptions with fewer than two simultaneous users, but subscriptions allowing three or more concurrent users will be more expensive.  The price increases range from 18% to 164%.

Usage statistics for the RDA Toolkit are available at http://admin.rdatoolkit.org/.

Streaming Services

     Streaming services  have been in the news quite a bit lately. Most notably, Hoopla (https://www.hoopladigital.com/home ), which has been characterized as "OverDrive for video". Another platform that's being used by many academic libraries is Swank, http://digitalcampus.swankmp.com/ , which allows for more controlled use and licensing.

     In addition to more wide open services like Vimeo, YouTube and UStream, there are also services like Streamhoster and CamZone and ones tied to class management systems like Kaltura.

     What service does your organization use?

Publishers around the world partner with OCLC to improve library workflows for electronic content

OCLC has finalized agreements with international content providers to add more electronic collections to the WorldCat database, the most comprehensive online catalog of resources available through libraries worldwide. Incorporating these databases into WorldCat and the WorldCat knowledge base will improve access to these collections and simplify administration for libraries that use OCLC WorldShare Metadata services. These agreements will also reduce the cost and time spent managing updates to these online collections for libraries that have registered with the knowledge base, and will provide immediate access for libraries that subscribe or want to purchase these collections. The value for libraries is that multiple applications will be able to access the metadata to simplify workflows for managing electronic materials.


See article at http://www.librarytechnology.org/ltg-displaytext.pl?RC=18457

JSC meeting in Washington, DC, November 2013

The Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA is meeting November 4-8, 2013 in Washington, DC. Among the many proposed RDA revisions under discussion at the meeting is one authored by AALL member John Hostage addressing the RDA instructions for treaties (revision proposal 6JSC/ALA/23, available at:  http://www.rda-jsc.org/working2.html#6ala23). Those interested in following the JSC discussions as they unfold may want to check out John Attig's blog at: http://www.personal.psu.edu/jxa16/blogs/resource_description_and_access_ala_rep_notes/. Mr. Attig, who until recently was the ALA representative to the JSC, started the blog in January 2009. His blog has provided blow-by-blow coverage of the JSC's annual meetings since November 2011. Mr. Attig has shown himself to be skillful in boiling down long and complex discussions to their most essential elements and reporting the outcomes in relatively easy-to-digest pieces.

MarcEdit updated adding WorldCat API functionality

As announced by Terry Reese and blogged by Roy Tennant at hangingtogether.org, MarcEdit has been updated to take advantage of OCLC's WorldCat metadata API.  It is now possible to set batch holdings in OCLC, batch upload/edit records into WorldCat, and search WorldCat directly from within MARCEdit.

More information and links to down load MarcEdit are available at http://marcedit.reeset.net/