Notes on OCLC's Updated Record Use Policy
There has been much discussion around OCLC's effort to update its record use guidelines. We have listened to the feedback and, as a result, have adjusted both the updated policy and the FAQ. We have modified our approach to WorldCat attribution (field 996). 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.
In this process, and in connection with my role on OCLC's Record Use Study Group, I've been asked more than once why OCLC felt the need to update its policy and why member libraries should support the updated policy. This post is an attempt to answer those questions.
Time for a change
In Web years, the Guidelines for Use and Transfer of OCLC-Derived Records, last updated in 1987, are not just 21, but as old as Methuselah. While the principles underlying the Guidelines have held up well with respect to sharing among libraries, the language and 1980s context of the document have made the Guidelines increasingly hard to understand and apply. The Guidelines have also been frequently faulted for their ambiguity about WorldCat data sharing rights and conditions.
What's the Web got to do with it?
The disruption that the Web would bring to libraries became painfully obvious when the Perceptions of Libraries survey report was released, revealing how much more likely respondents were to begin a search for information with a search engine (84%) than on a library Web site (1%) (see page 17 of 34). In our "attention economy," that's bad. OCLC's response to libraries' loss of attention in Web space, slow at first and quickening over the last couple of years, has been to start building Web scale for libraries (see Dempsey and Lavoie 2008).
OCLC's actions since I rejoined OCLC 18 months ago, as well as the passionate commitment of its leadership and staff, have been focused on placing library collections prominently on the main boulevards of the Web, right there with the Googles, Yahoos, Facebooks, and Amazons. WorldCat.org's purpose is not so much destination Web site as "switch," driving traffic from popular Web sites like Google Book Search to libraries' collections. The switching mechanism is beginning to work: in one recent five month period, 87% of the referrals to WorldCat.org came from search engines and other Web sites; less than 13% came from a typed or bookmarked URL to WorldCat.org itself. This week, a Hitwise commentator, reporting on downstream websites from Google Book Search, noted that 22% of visits from Google Book Search go to an Education website, with WorldCat.org the #1 Education website.
There is plenty of work remaining to be done to make the present cloud of disparate library systems, loosely tied together with WorldCat in the middle, attracting Web scale traffic from the Amazoogles, function reliably enough to deserve the name "Web scale for libraries," but the first hard steps are behind us.
To play the role it is now playing on behalf of libraries, 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.
OCLC has been severely criticized for its WorldCat data sharing policies and practices. Some of these criticisms have come from people or organizations that would benefit economically if they could freely replicate WorldCat. Other criticisms have come from a genuine commitment to openly sharing data on the Web in ways that will help libraries continue to thrive. Whatever the criticisms' motivation, the overarching point has been that the 1987 Guidelines overly limit WorldCat data sharing for new, Web scale uses of WorldCat data. At least some, if not many of these uses would be consistent with OCLC's chartered purposes and in the interests of the OCLC membership--especially those that will expose member library collections on high traffic Web sites.
Attribution and linking to the policy
An objection to linking to the policy goes something like "OCLC has no right to tell my library what it can do with its records." This is to overlook the 21+ year history of the Guidelines, which have governed what libraries can do with OCLC-derived records, albeit not always unambiguously. See for yourself by taking a good look at the Guidelines. Their stated rationale for imposing conditions on libraries' record sharing is that "member libraries have made a major investment in the OCLC Online Union Catalog and expect other member libraries, member networks and OCLC to take appropriate steps to protect the database." To that end, under the Guidelines, non-commercial record sharing between libraries is ok, commercial sharing is not, at least not without a separate agreement with OCLC. Sound familiar? The principles of the Guidelines match those underlying the updated policy--promote as much sharing as possible while protecting members' investment in WorldCat.
The difference is not in the principles, then, but the environment in which the principles are applied. The Guidelines came from the limited data sharing environment of the 1980s. The updated policy's landscape is the Web and the incredibly dynamic data sharing environment it represents. You couldn't tell from recent traffic on library listservs and blogs, but attribution of the source of data that is reused in another context is standard practice on the Web. Have a look at the license pertaining to Wikipedia, the GNU Free Documentation License, for example:
"You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially or noncommercially, provided that this License, the copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies to the Document are reproduced in all copies, and that you add no other conditions whatsoever to those of this License." (Section 2)
The perception of some bloggers and posters is that, unlike an article contributed to Wikipedia, the OCLC cooperative has no claim on WorldCat records that a library has copied for local use; but attribution is not a condition of Use as defined in the updated policy (Section C). Attribution is a condition (and now an optional one) of Transfer--that is, the updated policy asks for a link to the policy to be carried in a copy that moves downstream from the library that is using that record. In this way the link is serving exactly the same purpose as the link to the GNU license covering the copying of Wikipedia articles--providing provenance and information about the rights and conditions associated with this piece of information floating around the Web.
We think the request to link back to the policy (using the 996 field) is reasonable and will actually facilitate and reduce the costs of downstream WorldCat data sharing on the Web, where metadata is constantly exchanged, remixed, and mashed up. Notwithstanding what we think, it is clear that some of our members strongly oppose or at best, do not understand OCLC's reasoning. And so, the burden is on us to step back, explain, and do our best to gain support for this change in the community we serve. That is the course we have chosen.
OCLC will go ahead with implementing the 996 field in mid-February, because we feel it is the right thing to do and in the long-term interests of the cooperative. However, 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 are transferring to others (or alternatively make copies of the policy available to transferees), or not, at their discretion.
'No rights reserved" or 'some rights reserved'?
The Record Use Study Group began its work with an environmental scan of the data sharing policies of a variety of content and metadata providers on the Web. We learned that, while the blogosphere is noisy with proclamations that "data should be open and free," nearly all organizations have terms and conditions for sharing--that is, they reserve some rights over how their content or data is used and transferred to others. My presentation to the Libraries and Web 2.0 Discussion Group at IFLA a couple of months ago lays out the findings and conclusions of our investigation of the data sharing landscape (if you download the file you can see the speaker notes).
The Study Group was particularly influenced by the Creative Commons set of licenses. It is no accident that the structure of OCLC's updated policy mirrors that of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license (Definitions-License-Restrictions-Representations Etc.).
Creative Commons licensing provides an alternative to full control over content and metadata, building a bridge between a world that regulates every use--that is, "all rights reserved"--and an anarchic world in which content and data are exposed to exploitation. Under the variety of Creative Commons licenses that are available, content and metadata rights holders can protect their works while encouraging the freedom to remix and reuse content and metadata under specified circumstances--that is, to declare "some rights reserved." (And yes, while we considered simply adopting a Creative Commons license, we chose to retain an OCLC-specific policy to help us re-express well-established community practice from the Guidelines.)
Meeting information seekers' expectations requires--demands--more open sharing of library data on the Web. The OCLC leadership understands this and is committed to making it happen. However, the financial realities of many organizations--including OCLC--require careful transitions to more open models. It is not free (that is, without cost) to build services upon the valuable metadata contributed by members, and it is not free to be the steward of WorldCat (I discuss OCLC's stewardship/curatorial role here). To survive, OCLC must recover these costs, and it must do so from members; its funding does not come from government agencies, from higher education, from foundations or donations, from advertising, from parent companies, or from venture capitalists.
OCLC's updated policy represents a first step toward truly modernizing WorldCat data sharing policies. The text and the practices we have proposed (e.g., the WorldCat Record Use Form, the linking field) are a balancing act. On the one hand, we have tried for a policy that will have the effect of opening WorldCat data to new uses by libraries, museums, and archives while fostering partnerships from which innovative noncommercial and commercial uses of WorldCat data can emerge. On the other, we have tried for a policy that will assure the continued economic viability of WorldCat and the WorldCat-based services provided to the cooperative.
Why should libraries support the updated policy?
OCLC's update to the Guidelines intends to modernize them for application on the Web, foster new uses of WorldCat data that benefit members, and clarify data sharing rights and restrictions. It is definitely not OCLC's intent to rein in libraries' or consortia's customary use and transfer practices that have been in place for years and that have resulted in important library resource sharing systems and union catalogs. That is not what the updated policy is about, at all. It is our intent to implement an updated policy that will allow us to better manage commercial uses of WorldCat records, to assure such uses benefit members, and to defend against uses of WorldCat that could destroy the cooperative.
The updated policy is a legal document. Being a player on the Web, working on behalf of libraries, requires that the policy be a legal document. I know that some librarians will be uncomfortable with that, but it is necessary.
OCLC's and the members' central asset is the WorldCat database that we share. It is our common investment, our "commons." I believe it is the right course to protect the commons.* Thus, as Garrett Hardin has suggested in his writings about the "tragedy of the commons," it is appropriate to regulate the use of the commons. OCLC needs to manage WorldCat data sharing to assure that benefit accrues back to the members who have invested in WorldCat, and that the WorldCat commons is not exhausted through over-exploitation. Protecting the commons means adopting "some rights reserved" as the data sharing model. While a data sharing model based on "no rights reserved" is a laudable ideal, if OCLC were to adopt such a policy, it is possible, if not likely, that the WorldCat commons and the OCLC cooperative would not survive.
We believe that libraries, the wider library-archives-museum community, and those they serve will benefit from the updated policy without placing our shared investment in WorldCat at peril. As OCLC's four decades of working with libraries to increase access to and use of the world's information demonstrates, sharing burden and benefit is a proven and remarkably durable cooperative model.
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*I began drafting this post last weekend. It was interesting to read a blog post about the policy today that uses the same analogy.
As much as the content and intent of the policy is worthy of debate within the cooperative, which you lay the groundwork for here, so is the process by which it came about. I am not intimately familiar with the internal workings of OCLC governance, but it would seem that this policy did not get as wide of a hearing as it deserved.
The policy may be well reasoned, evolutionary, or even inspired. Personally, I need some more time to digest it. But that it didn't appear on the recent Member's Council Agenda (http://www.oclc.org/memberscouncil/meetings/2009/october/200810agenda.pdf), that it was "leaked" by an internal NYLINK message, that no one from the Member's council spoke up in favor or opposition to the policy after news of it became public (leading an outsider to wonder if there was/is there a non-disclosure clause), that OCLC stuck to its original Sunday morning release plan for the policy, that it was pulled with the briefest of comment, and that there doesn't seem to be a forum for follow-up discussion on the merits or practicality of the policy, it would seem that this clarification/policy-shift/change is more of a pronouncement than an effort "to gain support for this change in the community we serve."
What is the "OCLC's Record Use Study Group"? A Google search for those words lead to this post as the #1 hit; there does not seem to be any other public information about this group. Is this an internal OCLC group? Was there representation from the OCLC members? What other options were considered and why were they rejected? Is there a forum where these things are being discussed? Am I just out of the loop?
If OCLC is working on behalf of its members, then why isn't there an effort to engage the membership in a dialog about what is needed with an Updated Records Use Policy?
You're right there are a number of possible approaches to making a policy change. Our process was this: the Board asked OCLC management to update the Guidelines--not a new policy, an update. OCLC's leadership team asked me, in my role in WorldCat and Metadata Services, to put together a team, which became the Record Use Study Group. Our group completed an environmental scan (mentioned in the post). We spent a good deal of time interviewing thought leaders among the OCLC membership as well as colleagues in partner organizations and used what we learned to shape the update.
At the October Members Council meeting, Jay Jordan covered the update in his presentation to delegates, along with many other topics not listed separately on the agenda. During the course of the Members Council meeting many delegates and regional network directors spoke about the policy, some commenting favorably, others expressed areas of concern. The discussion continued via email after the meeting. While we were in the middle of revising the text based on the feedback, the posting prompted by NYLINK appeared, creating confusion. We continued the process of listening to feedback from members and updating the document. We posted the policy to the Web site very early Sunday morning. We continued to review feedback and as we made final edits, decided it was less confusing to remove the prior version as edits were finalized. We posted the updated policy end of business day yesterday.
Peter, we appreciate your input and welcome your ideas for additional communications with members and regional networks to answer questions and explain why OCLC updated the Guidelines and what the changes mean. Karen
There remains one big difference between the CC-BY-NC license you used as a model, and the actual policy. Your actual policy requires some recipients of sharing to enter into an agreement with OCLC (which OCLC can refuse to offer to a particular entity). The CC-BY-NC very explicitly and intentionally does NOT require this, and even _removes_ the ability of any sharers to require this.
This is a very big difference, as the entire purpose of the CC licenses is to avoid the possibility of someone requiring such a thing. So your policy may be like CC-BY-NC, while removing it's very purpose.
There is another thing to wonder about. The very ability of a CC-BY-NC to be legally binding is predicated on the assumption that the entity offering that license holds copyright to the work being licensed. If I don't hold copyright on a work, the legal justification for being able to require the terms of CC-BY-NC is gone. This applies both to things that someone else might own copyright on, or to things that nobody might own copyright on.
The data held in Worldcat may be either or both of those things. It's unclear if copyright can be held on cataloging records in the first place. If it can be, then it's held by those who did the original cataloging, since as far as I'm aware OCLC members have never transferred copyright or other IP rights to OCLC.
So while the CC-BY-NC license takes something that you would have no rights (or rather, only fair use rights) to use without a license, and gives you (very broad) rights to use it---the OCLC policy takes something which OCLC has questionable Intellectual Property ownership of in the first place, and which third parties might have been able to use as they like without permission, and applies requirements (much more strict than CC-BY-NC) to them by virtue of a (click-through style) contract which OCLC members must agree to use OCLC.
Very different thing. Apart from whether we like the new policy (some parts are good, other parts less so), I think comparing it to CC licenses in an attempt to garner some of the good will that CC licenses have--is a mis-direction.
Thank you for this post and the clarification of the process used. While I appreciate the need for a newly updated policy, Peter Murray's concerns about how the policy was being updated is echoed by many. OCLC would have garnered a much better reception from many of us, had they been open about this policy change and process from the beginning. If the original policy was released as a draft along with a public request for comment, I believe both OCLC and OCLC membership would have had a much better policy in the long run. Hopefully, since this policy has not been implemented yet, there is still time for OCLC to take some input. With that in mind, the new policy has some serious negative effects on libraries and their patrons that directly challenge the stated intent of the policy.
As written, OCLC Member and Non-Member libraries can transfer WorldCat records to other libraries. This is good, however the only other entities we are allowed to transfer records to are Third-Party's who have an agreement with OCLC. Or as D1b puts it:
A Third-Party includes individuals (B8). It is very unlikely that an individual faculty member or other library user would have such an agreement with OCLC. This means that libraries can not offer access to WorldCat records to our users unless they have previously been authorized by OCLC. This is a severe restriction put on libraries and has a significant detrimental effect on the ability of libraries to serve their users in the Web 2.0 environment. This basically makes it impossible for libraries to offer the ability for our users to use personal citation managers (such as EndNot) that use Z39.50 connections. It also greatly restricts our ability to provide library content to the user where he or she lives and works.
I understand that you say
However, this restriction and others in this policy do just that. By only being able to transfer data to other libraries, it significantly restricts the ability of library consortia to build union catalogs and other innovative discovery tools they reach across libraries. A library may be able to do this, but a county-wide IT office that is outside the library can not. Likewise, the Reasonable Use (B13) clause raises similar questions. What exactly is the purpose and/or function of WorldCat? If the answer is to find a book in a nearby library- something WorldCat is very good for, a union catalog would violate this term.As Terry Reese points out, I am greatly concerned that this updated policy reduces the ability for libraries to create network-level discovery services (outside of OCLC anyway). While you say that "Meeting information seekers' expectations requires--demands--more open sharing of library data on the Web. The OCLC leadership understands this and is committed to making it happen." I honestly fail to see how that happens if every third party needs to ask for permission to use metadata. While I disagree with it, I can understand OCLC wanting to restrict commercial use. However, this policy, at least as currently written, goes so far as to restrict personal use.
While I agree the old policy had a lot of ambiguity and an update was in order, this updated policy does not help member libraries who are trying to find innovative ways to reach there patrons. I assume we will disagree with this, but I believe that by truly opening up WorldCat to (at least non-commercial) use, libraries will be better able to reach patrons and the value of WorldCat will rise, not go down and "destroy the cooperative." The role of libraries is to provide access to information, not restrict it.
Lastly, on a positive note, I am happy to see that the attribution clause has been modified. While this doesn't address the concerns of some about the viral nature of the license, I do believe it is a positive step forward from Sunday's policy. I do have a request in this area though. If libraries are going to include the link back to the policy (using the 996 field) that OCLC is encouraging, can we have a link to a version-ed URI for this policy? If people are going to be embedding these URIs in their metadata they should be anchored to a version, not to a URL for the latest version since in the future, the terms that the data was acquired under may not match what the latest terms are.
The little section about funding sources seems slightly misleading...
"To survive, OCLC must recover these costs, and it must do so from members; its funding does not come from government agencies, from higher education, from foundations or donations, from advertising, from parent companies, or from venture capitalists."
I think you mean that supporting the mechanism for updating/sharing/modifying/downloading records all come from the fees assessed against members.
But OCLC as a whole has more funding sources, right? I mean, it has services and products acquired from elsewhere like ContentDM, NetLibrary, and EZproxy. I thought members also had to pay a fee to join OCLC. Surely the records are not the only valuable service you have to offer?
Also, individual projects in OCLC seem to seek grant funding and similar sources of financing that is traditionally considered "academic". Or at least from what I can tell from your press releases several projects have used grants.
OCLC also does receive donations, at least in special occasions (http://www.oclc.org/news/releases/20031124.htm - the settlement from the "Library Hotel" was done via donations).
I'm not convinced that the money that can be made from selling services related to having all that data in one place cannot offset the cost of letting folks beside yourself share that data. I think other folks who talk about opening records probably share the sentiment. I can understand some of the arguments for not sharing the records, but as far as financially it would be much more useful to have some numbers or figures.
I'm sure there's documents out that might make this clearer or at least something could be found by digging through the annual reports. If I get time at some point I'll do that to satisfy my own curiosity.
Jonathan, agree with you. We require an agreement for non-commercial use if the user is not an OCLC Member or a Non-OCLC Member (i.e., a non-member library, archive or museum). As I mention in the post, the updated policy employs some of the principles of a CC license (not that it is identical to a CC license). By mentioning the CC licenses, it was not my intention to mislead anyone (with the purpose of garnering good will), but only to describe the thought process of the Study Group. We carefully considered whether OCLC could adopt one of the CC licenses and be done, but there were aspects we decided to carry forward from the Guidelines that would not fit.
Edward, thanks for the points you make. With respect to use by individuals, you’ve caught an editorial change that we meant to make, but missed in the most recent revision. No intent to prevent libraries from offering access to their users (see FAQs 1, 2, and 3 under Library Online Catalogs). We’ll think about adding an FAQ to address the issue of the personal citation managers—it wasn’t our intent to suggest conditions on any of that kind of use. Regarding union catalogs, this is libraries sharing with libraries—again no intent to make a change but simply to continue what is already in the existing Guidelines (see Guideline 2, and its subsections 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3. The “local IT office” building a union catalog on behalf of libraries falls under 2.2). By our asking third parties to submit proposals for uses and transfers that fall outside the scope of the policy, are you assuming OCLC is going to say no? The purpose of the proposal process (WorldCat Record Use Form) is to say yes as much as possible, esp. to ideas that help libraries either create network-level discovery services or reveal their collections through the services of others (whether commercial or noncommercial). For more about that, there is an FAQ about the WorldCat Record Use Form. The intent of the proposal process--OCLC needs to be able to better manage the uses of WorldCat records by third parties, to assure such uses benefit members, and to defend against uses that aren’t in the interests of OCLC members. Good idea to have a link to a version-ed URI for this policy; I’ll propose that idea to our implementation team. Appreciate your taking the time to send your thoughts.
Jon, sorry, guess my text confused you. When I talk about OCLC’s costs, I am talking about ALL its costs—to build the cataloging services, to support batchloading, to take care of and enhance WorldCat data, to provide a resource sharing service and ILL, to make WorldCat.org and Local, and on and on. If you take a look at OCLC’s latest financial statement (http://www.oclc.org/news/publications/financial/default.htm) you’ll see the most recent one--OCLC brought in revenues of $246 million and had operating expenses of $242 million. We run really close to the bone; basically everthing that comes in either covers costs or gets invested in new stuff for members. Basically, the revenues come from members who either have subscriptions or purchase individual services from OCLC . A small proportion of funding comes from investments. For a lot more information about OCLC’s finances, as you've noted, you can check out the “financial report” in the annual reports on oclc.org.
Karen, Thank you for your timely response. I look forward to seeing the editorial change that you missed included in the policy. The issue about union catalogs is it is only libraries sharing data with other libraries if the entity creating the union catalog is a library. This is not true in all cases and it is still not clear what the purpose and function of WorldCat is according to this policy. While the FAQ may address some of the concerns that I (and others) have laid out, as you point out in your post, "The updated policy is a legal document." As such, these issues should be addressed in the actual policy (esp. the issue with personal use).
To answer your question:
I am not assuming anything. I am pleased to see that you say the purpose is "to say yes as much as possible." However, I do not know what OCLC is going to do in any giving case which is why I'd like to see as many of these issues addressed in the policy as possible.
Thank you for
Hello again everyone. Just want those commenting to know -- I am traveling tomorrow and Friday. I've arranged for your comments to be published to the blog, but I will probably not have time to respond to them this week. Will catch up as soon as I can. Karen
Hi Edward and others. I'm a member of the Study Group. Thanks for the suggestion to include the version of the policy in the 996 field. We agree to add this data to the field before the February implementation. We will add more data about the specific subfield and data to the FAQ in the coming weeks. Thanks, David.
Thanks to Edward C for commenting on our oversight with respect to the unintentional inclusion of the parenthetical '(including an individual)' in section A.8. The change will appear after the next deployment of changes to oclc.org.
-Karen
I would just like to clarify Karen's report about what happened at the October Members Council meetng. On Monday morning, Jay Jordan mentioned that there was a new Use Policy that would go into effect on November 2nd and that had been shared with the Network Directors. But he "was not going to talk about that" and he did not. The simple statement of the imminent arrival of the policy was all that was said. Checking with Network Directors revealed that though they had a copy of the policy it was confidential and OCLC had made them promis not to share it with anyone, including Members Council representatives, their boards, etc.
Later on Monday, the representatives met in an "OCLC reps can't be here" session and pretty much demanded that they be allowed to see the policy. This message was, apparently, conveyed to OCLC.
On Tuesday, about an hour before the end of the meeting, a copy of the policy and the FAQ was handed out to the representatives, and we were told that we had to return it before we left. Karen then explained very briefly how the policy was developed. The names of the the people on the study group were not shared, nor were the names of the leaders in the field who were consulted. As far as we know no member of the Members Council was officially asked about this as it was developed, nor was any network director. We had about 10 minutes to review what is a quite complex document and to react to it. There was one "you don't own the copyright - these records, if they belong to anyone, belong to the libraries" response, a couple of "we need to check this with our lawyers because we can't sign contracts that specify other state's laws" and a few other comments. Given that we had no time to review this, and in any case OCLC had left no time to discuss it - it is not surprising that the Members Council did not play much of a role.
At that time it was presented as a policy that had been passed by the Board, which implied to me at least that discussion was not an option. It was posted on the members secret website (login required) and we were told that we should not share it til November.
I am delighted that OCLC is now opening this up to comment from the whole community -- I just want to make it clear that Members Council representatives had only slightly more notice than the rest of the community and were stringently enjoined against extending the discussion.
Since it is now scheduled (thanks in no small part to the blogosphere) to be brought back to the Members Council in February, perhaps some position papers can be developed for OCLC to respond to and perhaps those responses can be made public before the meeting in February.
As a representative (albeit only an alternate) I feel that everyone on the Members Council should hear from their constituents about this proposed policy, and should come to the meeting (a virtual one) prepared to submit any resolutions about this topic that seem appropriate to reflect the views of our constitutents.
Perhaps, also, since the next meeting will be virtual, some parts of it can be opened to observation by all OCLC members.
Linda
PS - OCLC video tapes the members council meetings, so you should be able to review the entire tuesday discussion.
Karen and David.... Thanks for agreeing to change the 996 field to include the version of the policy and for removing the parenthetical '(including an individual)' in section A.8.
- Edward
Linda, your comments do bear a few points of clarification.
The update to OCLC’s Guidelines for Use and Transfer of OCLC derived records was introduced in the president’s report to Members Council by Jay Jordan. He provided an overview of the objectives of the new policy, walked through the summary of changes, and stated that it would be published on November 2. I was glad to get an opportunity to speak to Members Council the following morning to share more details surrounding the policy. We had some good discussion.
As I mentioned in our discussion at Members Council, we established an OCLC working group and we surveyed librarians from the member community to get their thoughts and input on the policy. We considered their feedback before presenting the policy update at Members Council.
I want to be clear on two important points. When planning for the update to the policy, we researched previous implementations of policies and followed precedence. Because Members Council delegates are elected by member libraries to represent the larger membership, we reviewed this update to the policy to Members Council first, followed by a period of time to allow for further revision and execution before it was to be published November 2. In my session I mentioned that the updated policy, FAQ and other supporting documents were available for review on the delegates’ web site.
There is a 90-day implementation period for libraries to consider updates to the policy. With this process in mind, the policy will be in place for the February Members Council. Member discussion of this policy as well as other new OCLC programs and initiatives are always a part of the meeting.
The video you mentioned will be posted on the Members Council Web site on Monday as scheduled. I do hope people will get a chance to view it for an overview of the discussion. As presented in the video and FAQs, etc., OCLC and the Record Use Study Group updated the policy to model other organizations whose memberships successfully operate in and on the Web, and in a way that will advance the investment made by over 60,000 libraries across the globe.
Karen, one of the FAQ's reads:
"# My library system has the functionality to enable the public to export WorldCat-derived bibliographic records (meaning downloading of selected displayed data). Is this OK under the Policy?
Yes, export as defined above is OK. Recipients of transferred records need to abide by the terms of the Policy for subsequent use and transfer of the records."
Are the recipients mentioned here the library users? If so, does this mean that users are bound by the contract the library has with OCLC? Or that they enter into a contract with OCLC when they download a record from a library system? If the answer to either of these is "yes", does the library have to give notice to the patrons regarding the contract? I guess I'm thinking that a click-through would be needed to include the users in the contract, if that's OCLC's intent, and that therefore library systems would have to develop that as part of the download interface.
Also, am I correct in understanding that "WorldCat" as defined in the policy does not include "worldcat.org"?
Karen, thanks for your comments. Our assumption has been that members of the public exporting records (including some WorldCat-derived records) from their library’s online catalog are doing so for reasonable, noncommercial purposes that support learning, teaching, academic research, scientific research, private study, verification of bibliographic information, development of bibliographies, etc., etc. OCLC has asked for libraries’ assistance, as they see fit, to make those who use their online catalogs aware of the terms associated with the WorldCat-derived records their catalogs contain. We provide libraries with a couple of optional methods for doing so. In response to your other question, some of the data displayed in WorldCat.org (the WorldCat bibliographic records) is covered by the policy.
In the Talking with Talis program, Richard Wallis asked me and Roy Tennant how OCLC can be a nonprofit organization that owns for-profit entities. As agreed on the show, I checked with the OCLC legal dept., and this is their answer to Richard's question:
OCLC is a nonprofit organization that furthers access to the world’s information, and we’re going to do that by developing and delivering products and services, as well as providing research and advocacy to libraries, museums and archives. The collective ability to help libraries share resources, do more, and extend their reach -- that’s our unique mission and that doesn’t change when new members join the organization. Nonprofit organizations can acquire for-profit entities as OCLC as done, provided they report the income and pay appropriate taxes due as a result of those operations within the local jurisdiction.
Karen, I did pickup someone's comments on a blog, which inferred that saving records from WorldCat to Zotero was limited... can you confirm or deny whether OCLC has intentionally limited data access from web-savvy applications such as Zotero?
Tom, OCLC's policy does not limit data access from Zotero or other citation software. Please see the FAQ under "Library Online Catalogs," number 6, which speaks to using citation tools with library online catalogs. It's my understanding that WorldCat.org is designed to work the same as a library online catalog for the purpose of downloading citations, whether you use the citation tools available on the WorldCat.org interface (text citation, EndNote, RefWorks), or some other tool like Zotero. If you are having problems saving records from WorldCat to Zotero, please contact our service support center at support@oclc.org.
Just a brief comment from somewhere in the real world...
If this proposal were a millage for support of a library, it would fail.
If OCLC thinks that asking a lot of people to read 12 pages of dense prose is a recipe for persuasion and support ... again, if this were a millage, it would fail.
Karen, thank you for posting an answer to my question about the relationship between the for profit and not for profit aspects of OCLC. I'm sure the clarification will be helpful to the community.
During our podcast conversation you also kindly agreed to ask your legal team to post a clarification to help those "questioning the intellectual property rights status of an individual marc record or a collection of them". Off-air we agreed that I would phrase the question more succinctly before you submitted it to your back-room legal people. This I have now done:
I hope your asking is successful, and look forward to the response helping to clarify some of the issues that have been concerning many who have commented on the policy and our podcast.
Hello Richard, thanks for your questions. I will continue to research this.
Karen,
I'm struggling with two concepts that I think are key to understanding the policy. The first is "WorldCat record" and the second is "transfer."
I'll start with "transfer." Given that we are in an online environment, display of data on a screen could fit into: "... providing the capability to download or otherwise electronically copy or any other means."
Q: Is display on a user's screen an act of "transfer" in the policy?
Q: Are WorldCat displays "transfers" of WorldCat records?
Q: If a user copies and pastes off a screen, is that a transfer?
Now, WorldCat record... this one is very hard. Obviously, a MARC record downloaded from WorldCat is a WorldCat record. At the other end there is the user who looks something up in their library catalog and writes down an author, title and call number, and I'm assuming that isn't a WorldCat record. In between these we go through a wide range of shades of grey, and I don't understand where along that line the definition of "WorldCat record" lies. I'm sure that I can't formulate a perfect set of questions that will expose a "bright line" definition, but here are some metadata uses that might be in that grey area. The question is: for which of these is the *resulting* bibliographic data a WorldCat record?
- On Worldcat, exporting a non-MARC display of the record to EndNote
Q. Is the resulting EndNote record a WorldCat record?
- Clicking on "Cite this item" on Worldcat, and copying and pasting the citation into a document
Q. Is the citation in the document a WorldCat record?
- Downloading a WorldCat record into Zotero.
Q. Is the resulting Zotero record a WorldCat record?
- Downloading or copying a record from a library system. Let's say that the record has an OCLC number, but there's nothing in the record to say that it came directly from WorldCat.
Q. Is the downloaded record a WorldCat record?
- copying an author and title off of the WorldCat or library catalog screen into the Clipboard function of a computer.
Q. Is the bibliographic data in the clipboard a WorldCat record?
I'm going to stop there because I'm running out of steam, and I invite you to reformulate these questions differently if I am heading off in a totally wrong direction. The main point is to be able to answer the question: am I transferring a WorldCat record in this function or activity? Is the bibliographic data I possess a WorldCat record?
Karen, sorry for the delay in responding. I have been away.
The concepts of “use” and “transfer” are key to understanding the policy; they define a life cycle for records derived from WorldCat. Both are formally defined in the policy, but it may also be helpful to think of “use” in the context of the use of records derived from WorldCat (generally in the course of using the OCLC cataloging service for copy cataloging) by a member library and used in the systems and services that library provides to its community. “Transfer” may be thought of as use of those WorldCat-derived records beyond that member library’s community, by other institutions. Once transferred, those records begin another cycle of use.
To answer your specific questions: Display of WorldCat-derived records on a user’s screen is not transfer (please see the FAQ), it is use. WorldCat.org displays are not transfers. An end user’s copying and pasting off a screen is not transfer (please note, there is another FAQ that talks about selected data elements in a record). Copying an author or title off a screen into the clipboard is not transfer. Similarly, a citation drawn by an end user from a WorldCat.org display using a tool like EndNote or Zotero is not a WorldCat record. Depending on the formatting of the record downloaded by an end user from a library system, the result is usually not a WorldCat record (but could be if MARC download is available).