Quoting Tim Spalding <tim_at_LIBRARYTHING.COM>:
> This is an interesting sentence to parse through.
>
> "Members financially support OCLC through purchase of services or
> products. Without the ongoing contribution of intellectual content or
> sharing of resources, such purchases do not qualify an institution for
> Membership."
>
> I take this to threaten not just those who switch to other providers,
> like SkyRiver, but also users of CatExpress and those using the "ILL
> Only" in only one direction.
>
> Does this seem right? Does anyone have the previous definition?
>
> Tim
>
I don't know if your assumption about users of services holds true (I
suspect there are numerous exceptions to these statements about
membership.) The 1987 record use policy [1] refers to member and
non-member libraries, although definitions may have changed since
then. In addition, the annual report that I referenced speaks
specifically of "voting members." As I recall, full membership is
required for a library to vote on representatives to the members,
council, but that may not be true for the international members who
vote on a regional representative. (Aside: are people elected as reps,
or are institutions elected?)
As for the question about contributing all of your holdings, here's
the relevant document on that:
http://www.oclc.org/worldcat/catalog/guidelines/default.htm
At one point I went through a bunch of historical documents on the
OCLC site that showed how OCLC went from a two-tier structure (members
+ elected board) to what is now 4 tiers, described here[2]. Obviously,
managing such a large "cooperative" is a tricky affair.
The global council meets once a year; the board of trustees meets 5
times a year. The minutes of the BoT are interesting: they seem to
meet for half a day and in that time ratify all of the issues before
them. So far I haven't found an item before them that doesn't end with
the equivalent of: "Having come from the Committee and no second being
necessary, the above resolution was moved and unanimously approved by
the Board."
One of my favorite bits is in the 20090608 minutes where some fairly
key issues are summed up as:
"Ms. Calhoun then presented an update on the current state of the
OCLC Record Use Policy, after which a lengthy discussion followed.
Mr. Alford then led a discussion on the issue of OCLC's social
contract with libraries."
I'd sure like to know what was discussed, and if anyone on the board
had anything salient to say.
One other thing, while I'm picking at scabs here: what is the process
by which folks (or institutions) get nominated for the various
councils and the board? I'll keep looking for that info.
kc
[1]
http://www.oclc.org/support/documentation/worldcat/records/guidelines/default.htm
[2] http://www.oclc.org/membership/governance/default.htm
--
Karen Coyle
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet
Received on Sun Aug 08 2010 - 11:43:46 EDT