Resource Description and Access (RDA) represents a major shift in how librarians will think about describing and cataloging resources, both print and digital. Jennifer and Diane will talk about the key issues facing the creation and introduction of a new set of rules for content standards.

Jennifer will provide some background on the process for developing RDA, provide an update on where the committee is in the process, and discuss some of the big issues that they are grappling with, including FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records).

Diane will follow on with a further discussion of some of the primary issues, especially from a "metadata perspective" vs. a traditional library perspective. If there is time, the presenters will touch on RDA within the perspective of the recently released report "The Changing Nature of the Catalog and its Integration with Other Discover Tools", prepared by Karen Calhoun for the Library of Congress.

Jennifer Bowen is Head of Cataloging at the University of Rochester and Head of Technical Services at the Sibley Music Library, Eastman School of Music. She currently serves as the ALA Representative to the Joint Steering Committee for the Revision of Anglo American Cataloguing Rules (AACR), which is developing a new content standard for resource description to replace AACR2, entitled RDA: Resource Description and Access. Jennifer is a co-Principal Investigator on the University of Rochester's eXtensible Catalog project, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and is the recipient of the 2006 ALCTS "Best of LRTS" award for her article, "FRBR: Coming Soon to Your Library?" She is a Past Chair of the ALA/ALCTS Cataloging and Classification Section, and has also served on the Policy Committee for the Program for Cooperative Cataloging.

Diane Hillmann has recently returned to the Cornell University Library as Research Librarian, after five years working with the National Science Digital Library (NSDL). She is currently working on the NSDL Registry, and continues her involvement with the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative. She was recently appointed to the position of Library & Information Technology Association (LITA) Standards Coordinator.