ARL: OCLC Review a Chance To Be Heard on Policy Change
Andrew Albanese -- Library Journal, 12/18/2008 8:04:00 AM
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After more than a month of some heated reaction from librarians over OCLC’s "Policy for Use and Transfer of WorldCat Records," which codifies the restrictions on and acceptable uses of WorldCat records, it’s time to take a deep breath. With the announcement of an Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL) committee to review the policy, ARL director Charles Lowery told the LJ Academic Newswire this week that the committee will assure that more voices are heard by OCLC before the policy is implemented. Of course, those voices will have to hurry—the committee has given itself a January 16 deadline, and meeting that deadline—or at least coming very close—is essential. “We’ll do our level best,” Lowery said. “We have to give OCLC time to consider seriously what we produce,” he noted, “Otherwise, our efforts will be wasted.”
Lowery said the joint committee came about after ASERL members (many of which are ARL members) approached ARL, whose own members had also been asking if the organization planned to address the proposed OCLC policy changes. “We became engaged with ASERL, as they they’d been asked similar questions by their members,” Lowery said, adding that the “point of the exercise” would be to address what the policy changes mean to librarians. “Having had that question from more than one individual member and having seen the level of discussion, some of which I would characterize as a bit overheated, we put together a group with some real expertise and understanding around use of records from WorldCat to explore how the this would affect members, the new policy compared to old guidelines.”
Indeed, the policy change has been a lightning rod for debate so far. Lowery declined to wade into the debate, or the seeming “unilateral” nature of the proposed changes as expressed by some bloggers, noting that OCLC was a membership organization. “It’s not exactly a vendor relationship,” he said. “Certainly, there has been a lot discussion about process,” he conceded, “but we’ve been offered an opportunity to voice an analysis, and we’re going to take it.”
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