OCLC Change in Policy

Nicole Engard posted a link to this post by Tim from The Library Thing blog about the proposed change to OCLC policy and why librarians must oppose it. WorldCat is why OCLC was created ...

"I have been thinking about the new, proposed OCLC Policy, scheduled to take effect in mid-February. I was driven to act after a recent AUTOCAT posting, in which a librarian suggested libraries not expose their collections to the web, except for "original cataloging," for fear of the new OCLC Policy. How terrible would that be?

I'm not sure the specific fear is justified, but fear certainly is. As the Policy states, violations of the OCLC Policy "automatically" terminate a libraries right to use any OCLC records. And OCLC gets to say what constitutes a violation.

It got me thinking about compiling all the arguments against the Policy. I want to start with the process and legal ones, which have gotten very short shrift. OCLC spokespeople are persuasive personalities, and OCLC's "Frequently Asked Questions" allay fears, but the Policy itself is a scary piece of legal writing and, as it explictly asserts, the only writing that matters". More>>