OCLC and LYRASIS Join Forces on WorldCat Services and Web-Scale Management
By Norman Oder Jul 1, 2010OCLC, long established as the world's largest library cooperative, and the recently-formed LYRASIS, which quickly became the country's largest regional library membership organization, have announced a partnership agreement for "the next generation of cooperative library services and consulting," involving both WorldCat and "new cooperative Web-scale library management services."
The announcement was rather opaque, but apparently those services—potentially the replacement for many if not all of the functions of an integrated library system (ILS)—will be marketed (but not distributed) via LYRASIS, which now has a national reach.
"This newly announced partnership agreement with LYRASIS is not an OCLC service distribution agreement," OCLC spokesman Bob Murphy said in response to LJ's queries. "It is a marketing, programs, education and member services partnership."
"LYRASIS does not currently sell OCLC products or services," he added. "This will not change in the new agreement."
(LYRASIS was formed by the merger of SOLINET and PALINET, added NELINET, and will add members from BCR, expanding it from an essentially regional organization to a national one. The moves were spurred by the change July 1, 2009 in OCLC's relationship with the networks, with no added surcharge for such networks.)
New programs and services
According to the press release, "LYRASIS will partner with OCLC and its members to explore next generation bibliographic and resource sharing standards and services." Programs to support these services will begin in late summer.
What kind of programming? According to Murphy, they will work on "increased programming, consulting and support around both exploration and implementation of new ideas, services and standards that relate to data management and data sharing."
OCLC and the components of LYRASIS "have built many integrated administrative and reporting capabilities to serve our joint members," he said, noting that OCLC has been working with its partners "to find ways to utilize technology to reduce these costs, to integrate our services more effectively, to eliminate services that are no longer needed, and to find ways to streamline and enhance these services to members."
Still, he said, "OCLC will continue to work with multiple partners, including LYRASIS, to serve members in the United States."
