Since I no longer work for an organization that processes OCLC records, the institutional contractual implications of the proposed policy don't concern me as much as they might have in the past. For example, back in the late 1980s I had several skirmishes with OCLC regarding record use in a consortial online union catalog.
Personally, I see this proposed new policy as OCLC's attempt to keep a lid on innovation, to prevent innovative library and non-library Web 2.0 developers from making creative use of library metadata. I think OCLC feels a little threatened by what's going on in this age of open systems and they are scrambling to make sure they don't lose "control" over "their" data.
If you look at the proposed policy from this perspective it makes perfect sense...for OCLC. But does it make sense for the library community? Library systems are in danger of being further marginalized in the information society if their metadata are locked down even tighter in library-only silos. If libraries want to play a bigger role on the web they need to fundamentally re-think how their metadata are used, including use of that data by third parties. If OCLC's proposed policy stands as written, libraries will effectively be barred from considering innovative uses of their data unless OCLC gives its blessing. And given the tone of the proposed policy, how likely will that be?
Bernie Sloan
Sora Associates
Bloomington, IN
Received on Tue Apr 14 2009 - 14:33:30 EDT