I said it in a blog post, but I think it'd be in OCLC's interest AND
that of libraries if OCLC could "de-couple" the cataloging copy service
and the holdings service.
What if OCLC worked with SkyRiver, charging SkyRiver a reasonable amount
(within both of their business model realities) to attach an OCLC number
to SkyRiver copy -- which would NOT be WorldCat copy, the OCLC number
would mean "this record represents the same thing as OCLC record # X".
This would not be done manually, OCLC already has a lot of expertise
with their "reclaiming" service at doing _reasonably_ well with this.
Why would SkyRiver want to pay OCLC even a reasonable amount for this?
Because now, when you buy SkyRiver copy, it comes with an OCLC number
for "same as" attached. Now, OCLC can offer a special lower price for
loading holdings from records that came from an "OCLC partner" like
SkyRiver -- since they already have OCLC numbers in them, OCLC's cost to
attach your holdings to the WorldCat record based on those SkyRiver
records are much smaller, and they can offer a lower price for it.
OCLC wins, because, by lowering the barriers to as many holdings as
possible being added to WorldCat, it maintains the value of it's
WorldCat holdings service, upon which both it's ILL services and it's
hopes for future business models based on web-worldcat (including
Worldcat Local) rest on. SkyRiver wins, because it can actually get
customers without the potential customers thinking they have to abandon
OCLC ILL to buy copy from SkyRiver. Libraries win because they can
choose the best provider for their circumstances for cataloging copy,
and still choose a different best provider for their circumstances for
ILL (which for most everyone is OCLC); and because Libraries win when
OCLC's ILL services stays comprehensive, for their own ILL use.
Instead, OCLC seems currently to be focused on a business model that
says "We know that everyone wants to be in our ILL, and the only way
we're going to let them do it is by forcing them to buy cataloging copy
from us too -- or if they buy it from a third party vendor, forcing the
third party vendor to give us their copy for free." That's not going
to work out for any of us.
SkyRiver is just the most salient aspect of this, the most apparently
threatening because it's potentially big -- but there are already lots
of small similar things in the mix, and have been for years. MANY of our
libraries, even OCLC members, buy non-trivial amount of records from
third party vendors. And MANY of these records do not have their
holdings registered in OCLC, because there is no affordable way to do
so, and because OCLC tries to require the vendor to let the third party
records be loaded in WorldCat to do so. With or without SkyRiver,
WorldCat is missing an increasingly large amount of holdings, and
everybody loses.
Now, in closing, none of this addressed what Shirley was actually
talking about, which is the loss of recognition that _professional human
metadata control_ is still a neccesary component in all of this. That
IS unfortunate, because professional human metadata control IS still
neccesary. Sadly, the de-professionalization of library cataloging that
began decades ago is in part at the root of this.
Jonathan
Shirley Lincicum wrote:
> More typically, the current model is to find a bibliographic record in
> OCLC WorldCat and download it to a local catalog, while attaching
> holdings to WorldCat to facilitate ILL/Resource Sharing. The local
> catalog component is currently in the greatest jeopardy. Many library
> administrators already seem to equate "cataloging" with attaching
> holdings to a WorldCat record, and OCLC is certainly isn't
> discouraging this view with products like WorldCat Local. OCLC is also
> increasingly responsible for adding content to WorldCat, either by
> batch loading bibliographic data obtained from other sources (e.g.
> their Next Generation Cataloging initiative,
> http://www.oclc.org/partnerships/material/nexgen/nextgencataloging.htm)
> or from its own contract cataloging operations. Given the apparently
> low priority that OCLC seems to assign to maintaining current tools
> (e.g. Connexion Client) let alone building more sophisticated/robust
> tools to support member libraries in contributing to the creation and
> enrichment of bibliographic data in WorldCat, I wonder how much value
> they place on on member-contributed data/records anymore.
>
> The nature of "cooperative" cataloging has been changing for quite
> some time. What I find disturbing is that as catalogs "move to the
> network level," many librarians seem to be quite content to relinquish
> all responsibility for most aspects of cataloging. It's true that it
> would be much more efficient for librarians to all contribute to one
> big catalog database that is accessible to all, rather than each
> library downloading copies of records from a single, centralized
> source to local databases. But is a centralized catalog that permits
> libraries to show local holdings and do little else to shape (or even
> make simple corrections in) the records that represent materials in
> their collection sufficient?
>
> Shirley
>
>
>> Sitemaps in Google are great. I am just concerned that we change our traditional attitude of: put a catalog record into my own local catalog, throw a copy onto Worldcat, and it's done. No, it's not. Continue to do that, but realize that now it's only the beginning. We have to find where our patrons are and go to them. This is not an easy task, but absolutely imperative, in my opinion.
>>
>> James L. Weinheimer j.weinheimer_at_aur.edu
>> Director of Library and Information Services
>> The American University of Rome
>> Rome, Italy
>> ________________________________________
>> From: Next generation catalogs for libraries [NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Tim Spalding [tim_at_LIBRARYTHING.COM]
>> Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2010 6:19 PM
>> To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
>> Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] OCLC and Michigan State at Impasse Over SkyRiver Cataloging, Resource Sharing Costs
>>
>> FWIW: Alexa is really bad. It's largely based on people who have the
>> Alexa Toolbar Installed? Do you? I don't either.
>>
>> Compete is generally considered the best service. From experience, I
>> can see it roughly tracks relative changes. But it doesn't have the
>> magnitude right—it has us at something like 1/4 of actual traffic. It
>> also seems to see our short-term Google traffic more than our stable
>> non-Google traffic. If Google rises or falls 20%, Compete makes it
>> 50%. My theory, though, is that the large errors it makes *might* be
>> the same across similar sites.
>>
>> Anyway, that's the story. Alexa is crap. Compete's the best. And nobody is good.
>>
>> T
>>
>> On Tue, Mar 16, 2010 at 12:56 PM, Ross Singer <rossfsinger_at_gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> My question would be, are these Alexa statistics even remotely relevant?
>>>
>>> To quote that Wikipedia's percentage is orders of magnitude higher --
>>> how is there any notion that any of this has to with the sort of
>>> "articles" that we would be able to work with? Facebook is higher
>>> than Wikipedia, although I wouldn't say libraries' use of Facebook has
>>> had a tremendous impact.
>>>
>>> What percentage of Wikipedia traffic goes from the search result page
>>> to other Wikipedia pages?
>>>
>>> It seems, to a large degree, that comparing Worldcat to Wikipedia is a
>>> case of apples to oranges: Worldcat to LibraryThing is a much better
>>> analog.
>>>
>>> I seriously think that if library catalogs produced sitemaps that
>>> included links to Worldcat and even LibraryThing, that this would be a
>>> simple, cheap way to improve our findability on the web.
>>>
>>> -Ross.
>>>
>>> On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 11:59 AM, Weinheimer Jim <j.weinheimer_at_aur.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>>> If the numbers I gave you are not compelling, here is a report that might interest you:
>>>> http://projectinfolit.org/pdfs/PIL_Fall2009_Year1Report_12_2009.pdf
>>>>
>>>> They discovered that students for school work, students use in this order:
>>>> 1. Course readings (surprising!)
>>>> 2. Google
>>>> 3. Scholarly research databases
>>>> 4. Opac
>>>> ...
>>>>
>>>> In the library, we see that students use online databases over our library catalogs.
>>>>
>>>> But still, it seems to me as if the statistics I quoted are worth something because of the huge discrepancies. If we say that it is OK that our work is only used by 0.016% of the populace, it puts us in a rather precarious position. We can try to say that these represent the "serious" people, but is that true? Is what we make aimed only at 0.016% of the populace? I don't want my job to depend on that.
>>>>
>>>> It seems as if this is a very small percentage for us to settle for, especially when we compare it to Wikipedia, where there are many, many people, each of whom is very definitely interested in getting information. Are these people "serious?" I know lots of researchers who go to Wikipedia and they are certainly serious. They use it to get a quick overview and for citations.
>>>>
>>>> It seems much more logical to me to infer that people are not looking in Worldcat for all sorts of reasons and that if we want to reach a larger share of the populace, we should place our records in lots of places that receives more visitors.
>>>>
>>>> James Weinheimer j.weinheimer_at_aur.edu
>>>> Director of Library and Information Services
>>>> The American University of Rome
>>>> via Pietro Roselli, 4
>>>> 00153 Rome, Italy
>>>> voice- 011 39 06 58330919 ext. 258
>>>> fax-011 39 06 58330992
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: Next generation catalogs for libraries [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Laval Hunsucker
>>>> Sent: Monday, March 15, 2010 4:23 PM
>>>> To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
>>>> Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] OCLC and Michigan State at Impasse Over SkyRiver Cataloging, Resource Sharing Costs
>>>>
>>>> Thanks very much for the descriptive statistics.
>>>>
>>>> I'm not sure how representative these specifically
>>>> Alexa data are for any definable population, not to
>>>> mention the population I had in mind : faculty and
>>>> students affiliated with institutions of higher
>>>> education in Europe and North America, who
>>>> aren't necessarily dependent on search-engine
>>>> approaches -- i.e., how capable these data are of
>>>> constituting a basis for rejecting a research
>>>> hypothesis that significantly more than a ( "very,
>>>> very" ) few members of that population -- and
>>>> possibly of some other population you might wish
>>>> to define -- use WorldCat ( to say nothing about
>>>> knowing that it exists ).
>>>>
>>>> Also not sure how comparable in this context
>>>> LibraryThing really is, to say nothing of Wikipedia.
>>>>
>>>> You used the term "can be proven", strong language
>>>> indeed, and I as researcher had a reason for reacting
>>>> with concepts like "methodology", "valid and
>>>> reliable", and "inferential statistics".
>>>>
>>>> Needless to say, therefore : the formulations "not
>>>> sure how representative" and "not sure how
>>>> comparable" which I employ above are euphemisms
>>>> for : "You have not yet by any means convinced me."
>>>> or "I still discern no evidence to justify your earlier
>>>> categorical claim.", which, as I wrote, doesn't accord
>>>> with my own experiential and anecdotal data. I think
>>>> we can conclude that the question has yet to be
>>>> responsibly investigated ( after, of course, we have
>>>> operationalized the terms "few", "use", "know
>>>> about", and of course "people" ;-) ).
>>>>
>>>> So -- I'm just gonna have to live with my own
>>>> perspective for the meantime. Pas grand-chose.
>>>>
>>>> None of this is meant to detract from your
>>>> proposition, below, that "We need other routes
>>>> as well.", and no, I don't find that the least bit
>>>> "unfortunate or sad". And also not meant to
>>>> neglect your important implicit question below,
>>>> i.e. : What is too much to expect ? But the
>>>> corollary is of course : What is enough to be
>>>> satisfied ?
>>>>
>>>> However all of that may be, any measures should
>>>> preferably be founded on good evidence, and by
>>>> extension therefore on solid research. There's
>>>> nothing sacrosanct about WorldCat. If it's not worth
>>>> what it ( in various ways ) costs, out with it. If it is,
>>>> well, . . ..
>>>>
>>>> I like the rest of your post below -- but can't refrain
>>>> from opining that while, as you say, OCLC and
>>>> WorldCat are -- like your example the catalogue card
>>>> -- in principle dispensable and "could disappear", the
>>>> same is true of librarianship and even of what we now
>>>> know as libraries. None of these things is an end in
>>>> itself. At least some of the "values of librarianship"
>>>> can be considered, for practical purposes, ends in
>>>> themselves -- but then again, they are neither the
>>>> creation or prerogative of, nor unique to, librarianship
>>>> and libraries.
>>>>
>>>> Attaining the ideal situation in which librarianship
>>>> and perhaps even libraries are superfluous is not going
>>>> to be an easy act, I think -- for all kinds of practical
>>>> and policy ( *not* philosophical ) reasons. Some may
>>>> find consolation in this prognosis. With forty-seven
>>>> years of intensive library involvement, I don't ; I feel
>>>> no need for such consolation.
>>>>
>>>> Anyway, as you've indicated : It's going to be interesting,
>>>> for quite some time to come.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> - Laval Hunsucker
>>>> Breukelen, Nederland
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ----- Original Message ----
>>>> From: Weinheimer Jim <j.weinheimer_at_AUR.EDU>
>>>> To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
>>>> Sent: Mon, March 15, 2010 10:44:26 AM
>>>> Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] OCLC and Michigan State at Impasse Over SkyRiver Cataloging, Resource Sharing Costs
>>>>
>>>> Laval Hunsucker wrote:
>>>> <snip>
>>>> I have no 'proof' immediately available one way or the other ( and would like to know what methodology, what valid and reliable research results, and what apt inferential statistics lie behind the declaration that "it can be proven that very, very few people use Worldcat or even know about it" ; maybe you have a quick reference at hand ), but I've for some years been constantly hearing disciplinary scholars saying in an off-hand fashion that their search in WorldCat yielded such-and-such a result. Isn't at least some of this dependent upon how visible the resource has locally been made, and how well it has been locally marketed ?
>>>> </snip>
>>>>
>>>> If you look at the Alexa site, you can see the statistics:
>>>> Worldcat: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/worldcat.org
>>>> Yesterday 0.022 +10% (they had a good day yesterday)
>>>> 7 day 0.0177 -3%
>>>> 1 month 0.0164 +1%
>>>> 3 month 0.0164 -7%
>>>>
>>>> Therefore, about 0.016% of searches go to Worldcat.
>>>>
>>>> Compare to LibraryThing:
>>>> http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/librarything.com
>>>> Yesterday 0.018 -30%
>>>> 7 day 0.0254 -0.7%
>>>> 1 month 0.0259 -8%
>>>> 3 month 0.0277 -1%
>>>>
>>>> Therefore, LibraryThing has a much higher percentage of use than Worldcat. (0.027%)
>>>>
>>>> Compare to Wikipedia:
>>>> http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wikipedia.org
>>>> Yesterday 12.51 -5.3%
>>>> 7 day 12.97 +0.2%
>>>> 1 month 12.975 -0.09%
>>>> 3 month 12.748 +13.77%
>>>>
>>>> Wikipedia gets a major number of hits.
>>>>
>>>> Based on these statistics (which have remained pretty constant) it would make sense to conclude that a record placed into WorldCat will make it available to the least number of people. Placing it in LibraryThing or Wikipedia would increase its use. The conclusion I make from this is that while we can go ahead and put our records into WorldCat, we shouldn't expect too much. We need other routes as well.
>>>>
>>>> Perhaps this is unfortunate or sad, but it is a fact nevertheless. What about when we add Google Scholar and Google Books into the equation? A friend of mine at FAO of the UN mentioned that they had recently placed the AGRIS database (an agricultural database) into Google Scholar and the hits went up exponentially. This only makes sense.
>>>>
>>>> <snip>
>>>> May well, but library-centric focus in itself needn't -- witness my experience, but also in principle -- disqualify an instrument as enduser-appropriate and enduser-used, at least in a full-blown academic environment. Other factors can play determinant roles.
>>>> </snip>
>>>>
>>>> Agreed, but products that are objectively better die every day if you can't get people to use them. Libraries have their collections and these collections need to be used, so I don't care how people find out about my materials. I can suggest certain ways, but if people want to use their own methods, that's fine with me. This is the world that is changing in fundamental, and as yet, very unclear ways.
>>>>
>>>> What is important is to save libraries (in whatever form they take) and the values of librarianship. We should not confuse this with maintaining "OCLC" and/or "WorldCat." Either one of these entities could disappear and libraries should be able to continue.
>>>>
>>>> <snip>
>>>> Perhaps -- but what will then be left of librarianship after they have been really solved ? Of course, once *all* of the librarianship problems have been solved ( i.e. from the perspective of those outside parties who alone ( can ) lend the field its legitimacy ), librarianship will not exist, or at least need to exist. Shouldn't your consolation ( as an apologist/advocate ) be predicated on the thought that not all of those problems will ever be solved ?
>>>> </snip>
>>>>
>>>> Interesting question. I think there will be many solutions, but no "ultimate solution." As soon as one "solution" is implemented, a dozen more will arise. When you solve these dozen, your original solution will have to be rethought.
>>>>
>>>> Some may consider this to be the very essence of futility, but to me, it represents the idea of progress. As new ideas and capabilities arise, you must adapt yourself to them. Just as the card catalog solved a myriad of problems, and created a host of others, we are in a similar situation today. The various ways of producing, and even using, cards evolved, and so will the methods we devise.
>>>>
>>>> Jim Weinheimer
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>
>> --
>> Check out my library at http://www.librarything.com/profile/timspalding
>>
>>
>
>
Received on Tue Mar 16 2010 - 15:04:55 EDT