After Delay, OCLC Lays Out New Policy for Records Use and Transfer
Josh Hadro -- Library Journal, 11/6/2008
- Revised policy posted after initial version taken down
- WorldCat's economic viability a driving force
- Debate surrounding both content and process of announcement
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OCLC on Tuesday released a newly revised policy governing records use. It emerged after some hiccups, including a leaked announcement last week and the posting on Sunday of a slightly different policy, followed by its removal just hours later.
The “Policy for Use and Transfer of WorldCat Records” explains what can be done with WorldCat records, listing guidelines for OCLC member and non-member institutions, and even discusses how commercial ventures and individuals might work with the records. While restrictions on the use and transfer of records to non-OCLC member libraries have been clarified and generally relaxed, the policy reins in usage by individuals and commercial entities, requiring all potentially for-profit use to be vetted by OCLC. [The issue of individual use has been clarified in the comments section of Calhoun's blog post.]
Even certain non-commercial uses could violate the terms of use. The “Reasonable Use” clause prohibits anything that “discourages the contribution of bibliographic holdings data to WorldCat, thus damaging OCLC WorldCat Members’ investment in WorldCat,” or “substantially replicates the function, purpose, and/or size of WorldCat.”
Motivated by economics
Though the policy sets out some lofty goals for the evolution of libraries and their catalogs, OCLC acknowledges that economic issues also spurred the revision. The policy FAQ states: “it is not economically feasible to maintain and expand WorldCat, its surrounding services and the cooperative on a completely open model."
In a lengthy entry to her Metalogue blog OCLC VP of WorldCat and Metadata Services Karen Calhoun described the revision as necessary for OCLC to remain a centralized clearinghouse and “switching place,” funneling wider web traffic seeking bibliographic information to local (OCLC member) libraries and catalogs, and exposing “member library collections on high traffic Web sites.” She continued: “OCLC needs to be a player on the Web, and not just any player, but an influential one. It therefore needs to be a Web company, with data sharing policies and practices appropriate to the Web.”
License added to field 996
One of the most significant changes is OCLC's plan to include a link to the updated policy directly into all new catalog records. Beginning in February 2009, the license mention will be automatically inserted into records as a 996 field.
However, at least partially in reaction to criticism, OCLC retreated from the position set out in the original version of the policy posted on Sunday, and now merely “encourages” libraries (rather than requiring them) to maintain the 996 field in the case of records being transferred to other institutions. Calhoun wrote: “If libraries do not wish to retain the 996 field in downloaded WorldCat records, they are free to remove it. In addition, libraries are free to either add the 996 field to existing records they transfer to others, or not, at their discretion."
Lightning rod for debate
Unsurprisingly, the latest news has given rise to a number of debates regarding OCLC’s motives and even its legal standing in imposing the restrictions. Jonathan Rochkind, Digital Services and Software Engineer at Johns Hopkins University, has written extensively on some of the copyright-related aspects of the 996 field license and its potentially "viral" nature, while librarian bloggers like Edward M.Corrado and Terry Reese have attempted to tease out some of the broader implications of the new guidelines.
Some of the more frequent criticisms on blogs and mailing lists concern the relative lack of transparency with which the company has handled the announcement and release of this policy revision.
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