Although we'll be hearing more from the Co-Publishers during the ALA Mid-winter conference, the intent is to issue RDA in its first release during the second half of calendar 2009. As has been previously announced, the national libraries (LC, NLM, and NAL) as well as their outside-the-US counterparts (British Library, Library and Archives Canada, and the National Library of Australia) will be doing testing of RDA prior to any adoption. And then, certainly, we want to give people time for RDA training prior to implementation. Looking into my rather murky RDA crystal ball, I would anticipate that the adoption of RDA won't take place until sometime in 2010. Please know we (those of us intimately involved in the RDA development process) are very much aware of all of this and are factoring it in.
 
While there will be changes in the format of headings (e.g., the Bible), making those changes should be considerably easier than it was in 1981, thanks to our ability to make computerized global changes.
 
But I do agree with Arlene regarding the need to have a knowledge and understanding of AACR2. There is no way that we are going to convert 27 years bibliographic records to RDA. They're going to be with us for many years to come and ISBD (minimally the order of areas and elements) will still be useful for display under certain circumstances.
 
Like the rest of us, I'm trying to get my mind around "how do I teach RDA?" and I've found some of the recent suggestions and perspectives expressed on this list extremely useful.
 
Cordially,
 
Marjorie
Marjorie E. Bloss, Lecturer (and also RDA Project Manager)
Graduate School of Library & Information Science
Dominican University
7900 West Division Street
River Forest, IL 60305
708-524-6468 (voice)
708-524-6657 (fax)
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