May 9, 2013 Program for Cooperative Cataloging Launches RDA Cataloger Training in Spanish

The Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) Secretariat staffed by the Library of Congress has launched a free, comprehensive and authoritative web-based training series in Spanish for catalogers making the transition to the new Resource Description and Access (RDA) protocol.

"Formación RDA para NACO" on the Library’s Cataloger’s Learning Workshop website is a self-paced, interactive series of training modules designed for Name Authorities Cooperative Program (NACO) authorities catalogers who work in Spanish around the world. The series, now available at www.loc.gov/catworkshop/courses/rda_naco_spanish.html, will also be available through the Library’s iTunesU channel.

Librarians from Mexico and Peru participated in the webcast production as did Library of Congress trainers speaking Spanish. The modules, developed by the PCC Secretariat with assistance of PCC members and Library of Congress multimedia staff, include videos, demonstrations, quizzes and exercises. Live "real-time" webinars will be facilitated by PCC RDA catalogers, and the Spanish language training materials will be featured at international library and Latin American studies conferences throughout the spring and summer of 2013.

"This is the first comprehensive training course presented by the Library of Congress and the Program for Cooperative Cataloging in Spanish, and I am delighted with the professionalism of the production and participation by Library staff and international partners from Mexico and Peru," Beacher Wiggins, director for Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access at the Library of Congress, said. "This is a huge step in our long-term goal of internationalizing the NACO program to serve even more libraries and archives around the world."

According to Philip Schreur, head of the Metadata Department at Stanford University and current PCC Policy Committee chair, “We hope that these Spanish language NACO webcasts, created primarily in support of our Spanish language PCC participants, will provide a boost to adoption of RDA in Latin America. In this age of linked data, keeping our global library community abreast of changes in cataloging instructions greatly enhances the ability to exchange data in the future--this is but the first step.”

The Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) is an international cooperative effort aimed at expanding access to library collections by providing useful, timely and cost-effective cataloging that meets mutually-accepted standards of libraries around the world. For more information, visit www.loc.gov/aba/pcc/.

Founded in 1800, the Library of Congress is the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution and the world’s largest library. It seeks to spark imagination and creativity and to further human understanding by providing access to its incomparably rich and multi-faceted collections, many of which are freely available on its website at www.loc.gov.