The final iteration of the new ‘Policy for Use and Transfer of WorldCat Records’, which will succeed the existing ‘Guidelines for the Use and Transfer of OCLC-Derived Records’ in February of 2009, was posted by OCLC on November 5, 2008.
The original version of the new Policy generated spirited discussion among librarians and others in the information management world.
A healthy discussion of the final version of the Policy has developed in the Code4Lib wiki. The wiki links to this line by line comparison of the two versions of the policy provided by the fine folks at LibraryThing.
In her post, ‘Who’s [sic] record is it, anyway?’ Karen Coombs provides a concise list of the kinds of rights librarians should seek for the use of bibliographic data:
- “Perpetual use – once I’ve downloaded something from OCLC I’ve for the right to use it forever period end of story. This promotes a bunch of things including the LOCKSS principle in the event something happens to OCLC
- Right to share – records I’ve downloaded I’ve got the right to share with others. This means share in any fashion which the library sees fit, be it Z39.50 access, SRU/W, OAI, or transmission of records via other means
- Right to migrate format – Eventually, libraries may stop using MARC or need to move records into a non-MARC system. So libraries need the right to transform their records”
We recently implemented LibraryThing for Libraries, and I believe Coombs’ final remark relates to the use and transfer of WorldCat records for content optimization by LTFL. We transfer our bibliographic records to LTFL, they add the content we’ve paid for and transfer them back. Perhaps this is not a true migration of format, but I think it constitutes a migration for format.
JRochkind offers ‘A logical OCLC argument’, in which he asserts that OCLC members would actually benefit more from freeing the bibliographic data held in WorldCat of which OCLC is trying to take ownership.
“If you free the data, then dozens, hundreds, thousands of people can find innovative things to do with it, each library can try to do what’s best for it’s users, making different decisions, seeing how it works out, learning from the best practices of others. If you do your best to monopolize the data within OCLC, then we are at OCLC’s mercy, hoping what they decide about the interests of OCLC Inc. really does match what our users need, waiting patiently for them to have the resources to supply that thing, and if it’s not perfect, waiting only for them to try a second version. If it’s open, lots of people can be trying different things in parallel.”
I concur with JRochkind’s overarching concern that the new Policy assumes, or asks libraries to assume, that ‘what is good for OCLC, Inc. is good for OCLC members’.
But how often do the priorities and interests of for-profit and not-for-profit institutions truly align?
