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I was asked for a further update to the Petition to Support Wojciech Siemaszkiewicz’s Memorandum on OCLC’s RDA Testing.  Below is the email that reflects the activity on the petition as of Nov. 16th.  With the PCC announcement that RDA records will continue to be created after the end of the official testing period, it seemed like a good time to send a follow-up message.
 
If you are interested in adding your voice to the petition, go to:  http://bit.ly/noRDAtest
 
Since Nov. 16th, another 24 people signed the petition, bringing the total to 300.  The people who have signed the petition since Nov. 16th are from a variety of types of institutions, including:
Some of the comments added since Nov. 1th include:
 
We again thank all of you who took time to sign the petition in support of a moratorium on the current RDA testing in OCLC!
 
Mechael Charbonneau, Associate Dean for Technical Services and Head of the Cataloging Division
Spencer Anspach, Head of the Database Management Section
Janet Black, Head of the Monographic Receiving and FastCat Unit
Jaqueline Byrd, Head of the Area Studies Cataloging Section
James Castrataro, Head of the Serials Cataloging Unit and Co-Head of the West European Member Copy Section
Sylvia Turchyn, Head of the Western European Cataloging Section
Indiana University Libraries, Bloomington
Technical Services Department
Herman B Wells Library
1320 E. 10th St.
Bloomington, IN  47405
 
_____________________________________________
From: Byrd, Jacqueline Jo
Sent: Tuesday, November 16, 2010 7:54 AM
To: 'Program for Cooperative Cataloging'
Subject: Update on the Petition to Support Memorandum on OCLC's RDA Testing
 
 
As promised, we are sending some information on the results of the petition for a moratorium on RDA testing in OCLC.  A total of 276 people signed the petition, representin a total of 138 different institutions.  Among the institutions were:
It should be noted that many of people who signed the petition did not feel comfortable identifying themselves and/or their institutions.  Although this is perfectly understandable, it may something about our profession.
 
You can see the full range of comments about the RDA testing on OCLC at the petition website (http://bit.ly/noRDAtest), but below is a sample of some representative comments:
 
Some of the people who signed the petition did not limit comments to the current RDA testing, but opted to comment on RDA in general, although this was not the intended focus of the petition.  These comments can also be read at the petition site.
 
We thank all of you who took time to sign the petition in support of a moratorium on the current RDA testing in OCLC!
 
Mechael Charbonneau, Associate Dean for Technical Services and Head of the Cataloging Division
Spencer Anspach, Head of the Database Management Section
Janet Black, Head of the Monographic Receiving and FastCat Unit
Jaqueline Byrd, Head of the Area Studies Cataloging Section
James Castrataro, Head of the Serials Cataloging Unit and Co-Head of the West European Member Copy Section
Sylvia Turchyn, Head of the Western European Cataloging Section
Indiana University Libraries, Bloomington
Technical Services Department
Herman B Wells Library
1320 E. 10th St.
Bloomington, IN  47405
 
_____________________________________________
From: Byrd, Jacqueline Jo
Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2010 9:11 AM
To: 'OCLC-Cataloging'
Subject: Petition to support Wojciech's memorandum
 
 
On Tuesday, Nov. 2nd Wojciech Siemaszkiewicz sent the e-mail below to this listserv
calling for a suspension of the current RDA testing in OCLC.  His memorandum received
much support on the listserv, but cataloging managers at Indiana University, Bloomington
want to provide a way for librarians to "sign" a petition in support of Wojciech's
memorandum.  We have created an online petition on the "iPetitions" website for this
purpose.  If you wish to voice your support for this, please "sign" the petition at:
 
        http://bit.ly/noRDAtest
 
In several days, after activity on the site has stopped, I'll send out information on
the support shown for the memorandum.  In the meantime, you can track the activity
at the website.
 
Our apologies for multiple postings!
 
 
Mechael Charbonneau, Associate Dean for Technical Services and Head of the Cataloging Division
Spencer Anspach, Head of the Database Management Section
Janet Black, Head of the Monographic Receiving and FastCat Unit
Jaqueline Byrd, Head of the Area Studies Cataloging Section
James Castrataro, Head of the Serials Cataloging Unit and Co-Head of the West European Member Copy Section
Sylvia Turchyn, Head of the Western European Cataloging Section
Indiana University Libraries, Bloomington
Technical Services Department
Herman B Wells Library
1320 E. 10th St.
Bloomington, IN  47405
 
-----Original Message-----
 
To all catalogers,
 
We have found ourselves in an unenviable position of opposing the work that
supposedly has been authorized by agencies representing our interests. I
might compare it to a military coup d’état. I mean here the RDA “test” and
its implications on the cataloging world at large. After extensive
discussions on the PCC, OCLC cataloging e-mail lists with opinions from the
British Library, Australia and North America, we can safely conclude that
there is a broad consensus against principles of RDA and the way RDA “test”
has been imposed on the cataloging world.
 
Therefore, I suggest the following memorandum to be implemented by
catalogers throughout the world in response to the “RDA coup d’état”:
 
                 November 2010 Memorandum Against RDA Test
 
We instruct the OCLC to do the following:
 
   Immediately suspend coding the test RDA records as acceptable records
      and recode them as substandard records with a code “RDA” (no PCC, LC,
      etc. coding should be allowed on these records). The encoding level
      for these records should be “K”, which usually triggers a full review
      of the record by highly trained technical assistants or professional
      catalogers. The LC records should be coded as level “7”.
   The RDA test records should be treated the same way as records coded
      with Spanish, French, German, etc. codes. This would allow catalogers
      to create parallel records for 040 English records according to
      existing and widely accepted AACR2 rules.
   Under no circumstances should RDA testers be allowed to create
      conflicting NAF or SAF records in LCNAF or LCSAF. This has already
      created a great deal of confusion and has been universally rejected
      by catalogers involved in the discussion.
 
We instruct agencies responsible for the RDA test to instruct its testers
to follow above mentioned rules as a way to avoid workflow complications
and growing confusion in libraries around the world.
 
We understand that the RDA test is just a test and in no way is an
indicative to a future cataloging procedures and rules that would replace
universally accepted AACR2 rules.
 
Wojciech Siemaszkiewicz
New York Public Library
Library Services Center
31-11 Thompson Ave.
Long Island City, N.Y. 11101
(917) 229-9603
e-mail: [log in to unmask]