Hi folks,

I'm passing this on for Dianne McCutcheon at the National Library of 
Medicine. They're looking for technical folks to help dig into testing 
RDA to determine whether it'll really enable library metadata to be used 
across systems more effectively, and better support discovery.

I hope there are some folks who'd be interested in participating!

-emily lynema

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The Library of Congress, the National Agricultural Library and the 
National Library of Medicine have jointly decided to test Resource 
Description and Access (RDA), the proposed new cataloging code, before 
making a decision on whether or not to implement this new standard.  See 
the joint statement and accompanying letter from Deanna Marcum, 
Associate Librarian for Library Services, Library of Congress for more 
details:   http://www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/cataloging/RDA_Letter_050108.pdf

We plan to include members of the U.S. library community as well as ILS 
vendors and OCLC, in the testing. We are also interested in including 
developers from the code4lib and NGC4Lib communities who could help 
evaluate the assertion that RDA will allow the data produced to function 
within a wide range of technological environments and better support 
resource discovery.

The test period will begin after RDA is released, currently targeted for 
July 2009.  We are in the process of developing the methodology for 
testing and would welcome input from testing partners.
If you are interested in participating, or have a suggestion of someone 
we should contact, please e-mail one of the national library contacts: 
Dianne McCutcheon (NLM) [log in to unmask], Christopher Cole (NAL) 
[log in to unmask] or Beacher Wiggins (LC) [log in to unmask]

Regards,
Dianne McCutcheon
Chief, Technical Services Division
National Library of Medicine
Bethesda MD 20894
(301) 496-6134
(301) 402-1211 (fax)
  [log in to unmask]