OCLC RDA Policy

It has recently been pointed out that OCLC hasn't updated the posted RDA
policy (http://www.oclc.org/us/en/rda/policy.htm) in a number of months.
OCLC is currently working on a new policy which will be posted later
this year, which will be an outgrowth of the comments received in
response to this paper (http://www.oclc.org/us/en/rda/discussion.htm)
which was posted early in 2012.  The new policy will apply beginning
March 31, 2013.  Meanwhile, the posted policy is still the current
policy.  We urge member libraries to continue to abide by the current
policy when cataloging in WorldCat.   In short, that means not changing
full level AACR2 records to RDA at the present time.  

We know that some libraries are eager to begin cataloging in RDA.
Because the OCLC membership is large and diverse, we urge you to use
restraint and not change existing records un-necessarily, as that can
have a large impact on other libraries in the cooperative that are in a
very different position from your own  library in terms of being ready
to use RDA.  

As the current policy has said from the beginning, OCLC has no plans to
require that libraries do original cataloging according to RDA now or
post-March 2013.  OCLC will continue to support records that have been
cataloged according to many codes.  

OCLC will maintain the policy of one master record per manifestation for
each language of cataloging.  Duplicate records will continue to be
merged.  Cataloging created according to a different code is not a
justification for a duplicate record.  

When OCLC has our new RDA policy ready later this year, we will
publicize it widely and offer free webinars to explain the policy in