> Interestingly, libraries are not required to retain the 996 fields that OCLC will provide after the effective date of the policy, and they are just "encouraged" to retrospectively add the 996 to WorldCat records transferred to others.
A lot of people cheered when OCLC backed down from requiring to
"encouraging" the insertion and retention of OCLC licensing terms in
MARC records. But the terms themselves didn't change. A library caught
mis-using or mis-transferring could but cut off from OCLC records,
including the ones they already had and upon which their library
depended day-to-day. And, of course, only OCLC got to say when a
library was misbehaving.
So a clear situation turned into a murky one—every copy-cataloged
record became legal worry. And when it comes to libraries—which are,
let us admit, not inclined or equipped to fight legal
battles—unclarity is paralysis.
I don't know about you, but I've stopped caring what OCLC does. They
have shown they will push for onerous, monopolistic terms. And they've
shown they'll back down in the face of concerted action by the library
and open-data community. They goals and their weakness are known. At
this point, if OCLC succeeds in locking library information up,
libraries have only themselves to blame.
Tim
Received on Sat Apr 18 2009 - 23:21:36 EDT