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Karen,

Both you and Sharon just reminded me about a way to access RDA that is easy
to overlook. If you are teaching at an LIS school that is affiliated with a
library that is already subscribing to the RDA Toolkit, access to the RDA
toolkit is provided on a complimentary basis to you as an educator. I know
that doesn't help everyone - but it can't hurt to check.

Another means of access  - if you are affiliated with a national RDA test
site - access to RDA Toolkit will remain open until March. I know that there
was at least one ALA group that served as an informal test site - perhaps
you volunteered to create or review records? Otherwise, I realize the cost
is $325 for a license - perhaps your institution could be convinced to
provide this as a service for students and/or add a small course fee to
cover the cost? GSLIS did that in the past with the now free LC workshop
materials, I think it worked out to a very small fee less than $10 per
student (much less expensive than the paper RDA). One additional benefit to
Toolkit access, is that it also provides access to AACR2 - in a much more
useful online form than Catalogers Desktop!

I don't really get the sense that anyone is doing deep instruction about
cataloguing in RDA (save targeted workshops like Diane's). I do get the
sense from those who are covering RDA in their courses to some extent -
that the focus is on current awareness (our students will be at the
forefront of cataloging for some time to come), and carried on in the spirit
that even if RDA is never adopted, experience with evaluating, and learning
about data structures will be invaluable for anyone trying to maintain
bibliographic access from now on.

-- 
Kathryn La Barre
Assistant Professor
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign