Advancing RDA education: Vocational training for catalogers by the National Library of Greece

Libraries are updating their cataloging policies according to new standards and library conceptual models. The National Library of Greece (NLG) has started implementing the IFLA LRM model under the official RDA rules in 2022. At the same time, the NLG initiated a series of internal trainings and took the lead to support the Greek library community in adopting the official RDA. Both internal and nationwide training programs have been organized over the past 3 years. This paper documents the strategy of the NLG to support the Greek library community in adopting the official RDA and outlines the steps towards this goal. Furthermore, it demonstrates the internal and external processes to promote the transition to the new standards and to assist other library communities across the globe interested in adopting the official RDA at a regional or national level. Ultimately, the goal is to inform the international library community regarding the choice of MARC21 over UNIMARC, the decisions taken to enable the data to become linked data (LD) ready, and the two educational programs implemented, one for the staff of the NLG, and another for all Greek librarians.