You think you know, but you have no idea: Local Holdings

I just completed Palinet’s ‘Local Holdings Basic Maintenance’ online workshop.

Since I was given a basic orientation to creating local holdings in WorldCat, I wasn’t sure how useful this workshop would be.  My pragmatic brain was expecting to form a better foundation of the basic skills in composing local holdings records, such that my ILL Coordinator colleague would not receive so many ‘unfillable’ requests.

I was impressed beyond my expectations by the quality and depth of the workshop.  Two of my favorite outcomes were learning about the Strategic Union List file and the Local Holdings Offline Product.

The Strategic Union List file is a file one can query from WorldCat that contains all ILL requests received and requests filled by title for a calendar month.  Basic analysis will tell you whether you are filling a reasonable number of ILL requests.  If your unfilled requests are reaching the ‘unreasonable’ point, this probably has something to do with the information contained – or not contained – in your Local Holdings.  Making your local holdings complete will allow patrons to better request materials based on their actual availability and related lending policy.

The Local Holdings Offline Product is a list of all of your institution’s local holdings and is available for free upon request once a year from OCLC.  I’m a masterlist kind of gal, so this peaked my interest.  Going through this list to clean up erroneous or incomplete LHRs is a rainy-day project I’ll keep tucked away.

I highly recommend the Palinet online workshops to anyone looking to brush up on their skills or to develop more confidence in using OCLC Connexion.  Now that I know what all those toggle buttons are for, my LHRs will never be the same!

Final ‘Policy for Use and Transfer of WorldCat Records’ Posted by OCLC

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:

1. “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
2. 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
3. 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?

Gone but not forgotten: the new OCLC “Policy for Use and Transfer of WorldCat Records”

Posted for less than 48 hours, the still-much-anticipated OCLC “Policy for Use and Transfer of WorldCat Records” (archived here) has created a stir in the library community.

The most controversial policy requirements concern the transfer of WorldCat records from OCLC members to other OCLC members and non-OCLC members.  The policy, which has been removed from the OCLC site and replaced with the statement

“We are reconsidering some aspects of the policy. More information will be available in the near future.”,

would require members who are transferring WorldCat records to include:

“Attribution. WorldCat and OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. must be clearly identified as the source of WorldCat Records Transferred. Please see the FAQ for information about appropriate attribution of WorldCat and OCLC.

Modification Restriction. The OCLC number (if any), the link to this Policy and any additional means of attribution (besides the link to this Policy) may not be removed from any WorldCat Record.

Commercial Transfer Prohibited. Commercial Transfer of WorldCat Records is prohibited unless OCLC has entered into a separate written agreement with the party that will receive the WorldCat Records. The WorldCat Record Use Form should be used to initiate discussions with OCLC regarding an agreement authorizing Commercial Transfer of WorldCat Records. OCLC may refuse to authorize Commercial Transfer of WorldCat Records, without liability, in its sole discretion.

Copy of Policy. If an OCLC Member Transfers WorldCat Records of its own Holdings under Section D.1.a above, the OCLC Member will provide the party receiving the WorldCat Records with a copy of this Policy (or a link by which this Policy may be accessed) and indicate that Use and Transfer of WorldCat Records is permitted only in accordance with the Policy.”

Further reactions and analysis can be found here.