Tim, I don't know if this answers your questions, but...
What strikes me particularly with this whole bruhaha is that OCLC has
not been forthright about its reasons for the policy. The language it
uses sounds false: "to protect the value of WorldCat" etc. Those are
platitudes, not organizational directions. The document and the various
statements around the document are full of contradictions. And OCLC's
motivation has never been made clear. Had OCLC come forward and said:
"You know, we're not going to be able to continue to provide our
services if the market goes the direction of open access and distributed
data storage," then it might be possible to have a debate. But the
policy that they have provided isn't a basis for debate because it
doesn't really say anything. And it reads like it was carefully crafted
not to say anything, which tells me that OCLC sees itself in conflict
with its members and therefore is trying to avoid a discussion on the issue.
The only way to resolve this is to have an honest and open discussion in
the community (and including OCLC) about where we think we should be
going. Unfortunately, I don't think that will happen. Certain statements
in the committee report tell me that they have bought into some of the
assumptions, like the need to "protect" WorldCat at all costs, and to
control downstream use. If you start with those assumptions, then your
direction is already set.
Even the ARL report does not question the basic assumptions.
"To the extent that any restraints are needed, they must focus on
wholesale, deliberate redistributions of records...
a better approach would be to adapt the language in the definition of
Reasonable Use, that is, to apply the policy to data extracts that
substantially replicate the function or purpose of WorldCat Records." (p. 5)
Without going too far out on a limb, it looks to me like OCLC member
libraries are going to accept restrictions on distribution of records
from their own databases. To me that's insane, but that's what it looks
like at the moment.
kc
Tim Spalding wrote:
> Karen,
>
> What's your prediction about what's next?
>
> Is this effort basically toast or not? Will real consensus will be
> hard to create, and will events move fast enough that what you and a
> few others perceive about alternatives will be obvious to everyone by
> the time anything is done? Or is this a strategic retreat and, with
> some clever handling OCLC's power grab can be recast as a community
> enterprise?
>
> Tim
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 11:29 PM, Karen Coyle<lists_at_kcoyle.net> wrote:
>
>> B.G. Sloan wrote:
>>
>>> "According to OCLC's announcement, 'a new group will soon be assembled to
>>> begin work to draft a new policy with more input and participation from OCLC
>>> membership. Until then, the 'Guidelines for the Use and Transfer of
>>> OCLC-Derived Records' will continue to govern WorldCat data exchange, as it
>>> has since 1987."
>>>
>>> http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6668022.html
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> I recommend that folks take a look at the committee's report, which is at:
>> http://www.oclc.org/worldcat/catalog/FinalReport_ReviewBoard.pdf
>>
>> In particular look at some of the technical assumptions in that report (and
>> presumably in the thinking of the committee). One in particular, on page 1,
>> is the strong affirmation that the answer (question unclear here) is an
>> international union catalog. And that union catalog is WorldCat. If you
>> begin with *that* assumption about the technology, you don't then explore
>> other models, such as distributed data systems or data "in the web." This is
>> unfortunate, in my mind, because it seems to reject, a priori, the NextGen
>> catalog ideas that are floating around. It would have been interesting to
>> use the opportunity that the OCLC policy development provides to have a
>> discussion in our profession about future directions. I don't see how that
>> can happen if the discussion cannot question whether a centralized union
>> catalog is what we see serving libraries in the future.
>>
>> There also doesn't seem to be an awareness of the technical difficulty of
>> controlling downstream use of data. It has always seemed to me that this is
>> patently infeasible, and therefore not a good basis on which to create a
>> policy. We have good examples of how this has played out in other sectors --
>> including the failure of DRM with materials that are much less mutable than
>> bibliographic data, such as sound files.
>>
>> kc
>>
>> --
>> -----------------------------------
>> Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
>> kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
>> ph.: 510-540-7596 skype: kcoylenet
>> fx.: 510-848-3913
>> mo.: 510-435-8234
>> ------------------------------------
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
--
-----------------------------------
Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
ph.: 510-540-7596 skype: kcoylenet
fx.: 510-848-3913
mo.: 510-435-8234
------------------------------------
Received on Fri Jul 03 2009 - 10:05:48 EDT