I would like to introduce myself to the cataloging community as Publisher for the newly created Digital Reference unit at ALA Publishing. The Digital Reference unit is responsible for ALA's co-publisher role in RDA
(Resource Description and Access) the digital replacement for AACR2. Some of you may know me from my 12 years' experience at ALA Publishing, working on RDA and AACR2 in addition to many other publishing projects. My role with RDA has expanded, from the production and software development responsibility that I have held from the beginning, to include coordinating the full breadth of ALA Publishing's responsibilities for RDA. As we approach the launch of the RDA Toolkit, the website that will house RDA in addition to other helpful cataloging resources and tools, we want to increase the direct communication between the co-publishers of RDA and the cataloging community. I am committed to actively reading and, when helpful, posting responses to questions and concerns raised by catalogers in a variety of venues (like this one) regarding the RDA and the RDA Toolkit. We will soon post registration information for an upcoming RDA Toolkit Webinar offering a repeat of the guided tour of the RDA Toolkit beta site given at ALA's Midwinter Meeting. In addition to the Webinar, the co- publishers are drafting an RDA Toolkit FAQ that will address many of the recent questions asked by attendees at Midwinter, posted to lists, or sent to rdatool...@ala.org. We will post the FAQ URL as soon as it is active. To receive RDA Toolkit announcements and news directly from the co- publishers, please email us at rdatool...@ala.org so we can add you to our RDA Toolkit mailing list. These announcements will come out frequently over the next few months as we approach the June 2010 launch of the RDA Toolkit. Kind regards, Troy Linker Publisher, ALA Digital Reference American Library Association (312) 280-5101
