From the Review Board

OCLC supports "WorldCat data sharing that encourages innovation and benefits libraries, museums and archives while protecting OCLC's members' investment in WorldCat."

Sharing bibliographic data freely, without worrying about whether it advances profitable causes, achieves all these criteria. It certainly encourages innovation; it certainly will benefit libraries, museums, and archives; and the wealth of innovative services based on freeing the records will handsomely repay members' investment in WorldCat while benefiting the world at large as well. Let us not hoard metadata like a jealous dragon.

Good wishes on your work. "Shared Data Creation" in the name is the essence of OCLC's roots, and its mission was collaborative and a collective enterprise from Day One. No one assumed one day that this "entity" would seek to impose intellectual property restrictions on the contributions of its members; nor, would this same group enterprise seek to prohibit a member, any member organization, from taking from the "common pool of contributions" their OWN DATA, their own DNA as theirs.

Their own data *is* theirs, simply hosted and archived for THEM (and others) by OCLC. Hosting data (OCLC's role) does not imply nor equal relinquishment of ownership rights in that contributed data.

OCLC does perhaps have a right to asserting some ownership and control over the *aggregate,* but that's for another day.

For now, disallowing the use of a member's own data for their own needs or uses seems wrong --legally, and intellectually, and morally.

They (members) created the records; they corrected them; they maintain them; they *own* them, in concert with the aggregate ownership with their archival host and partner.

Their portion of the records should forever be theirs to use and manage and even withdraw, as they see fit. Why else would they have done this work into a "common pool"? They would never have contributed to the vast body of information in the Catalog if they had known from time of submission it was no longer "theirs." I hope you can do the right thing, and correct the mistaken path OCLC had started down. Fix the future by looking to the past, what we began as, and what we join FOR. Membership equals owning your own records, for now and forever.

Best,
DrWeb aka Michael
*speaking only for himself*

There seem to be 2 primary arguments in the library community (and those who create services marketed to them) that comprise the resistance to OCLC's announcement. The first is that the records belong to the members and they would not have contributed them if they had known their use would be restricted. The second is that OCLC, by not making all data freely available for use by anyone for any reason, is stifling innovation.

There are assumptions and errors in both arguments. In the first, there is nothing in the proposed agreement that prevents members from using their own records in any way they choose. However, the appeal of using OCLC as a cataloging utility is that most institutions contribute little and take much from the collective resource. Cataloging copy from WorldCat saves them local resources (presumably more than their membership costs) by utilizing the accrued work of thousands of institutions. Practically all of the records that are used for cataloging (or ILL or reference) are not simply the result of one institution, but of accumulated holdings, edits, quality control updates, etc. that membership in OCLC makes uniquely possible.

So members pay for, and benefit from, use of OCLC records that are not primarily their own - and yet they think it prudent that any other body can do the same without their contribution, without agreement with OCLC, and without compensation to the OCLC membership? What would you think if Google decides that your largess is such that they are going to grab all of your work and apply it to Google Book Search without any compensation or agreement with OCLC? Would OCLC be stewarding the database on behalf of the interests of it's membership?

The second primary argument, that OCLC is stifling innovation is similarly confused. First, it makes the immediate assumption that LibraryThing, OpenLibrary, and the like are going to be turned down by OCLC if they should wish to reach agreement. This is an untested, and I would venture to say, an erroneous assumption. What I see in this agreement that OCLC will do is ensure that the interests of the members is protected, and when appropriate, compensated for innovative projects that wish to utilize the data the members have collectively created with immense stewardship by OCLC. In fact, with agreements in place, it is as easy to assume that there would be increased use of the data for innovation than in the past, including by the very crusaders against the agreement.

I contribute data to many social networks. The owners of those networks often (not always) allow use of a discrete portions of my or other user's data, but not the wholesale capture and reuse of all of "their" accumulated data. In other words, I can download, or link to YouTube videos that I or others have created, but not capture the entire YouTube video and build a new service based on this without agreements in place. Yet there are scores of sites that seek to innovate new services in part by utilizing YouTube content. The same is true of the other networks (databases, really) I and other contribute to.

The arguments against OCLC seem to posit that WorldCat should allow anybody who wishes to capture any portion of the database and utilize it for any purpose without any agreement with the membership. While it is possible and likely that this would lead to innovative (and even duplicative) services, it is not necessarily any more likely than it would be that such innovations can occur with open access to limited amount of these resources, but agreements in place, on behalf of the membership, for access to an unlimited amount of the data.

So I would encourage OCLC to continue to open data and foster innovation (which they have been doing) and, at the same time, representing the interests of the membership, by continuing to advocate for agreements to be in place with entities that wish to utilize the collective, stewarded data that members contribute. It is likely that libraries, OCLC, and the vendor community that serves the library community will continue to evolve and that OCLC's role (and even existence) will be affected in the long run. If this should happen without OCLC being able to protect to the extent possible, and negotiate on behalf of the interests of the whole membership because of a misconstrued and misunderstood reaction by those very members, it would be a ironic at best.

I would like to reiterate what I said at the ALA Midwinter meeting. I really appreciate the articulate comments made by the speakers. What you really end up dealing with are the messy metadata pieces that Peter Murray from OhioLink described. Furthermore it makes no sense to me that for every little project like the one described by the person from Newberry Library, where they were considering working with a commercial vendor to digitize their materials, should require that every library come and bow down to OCLC to have them allow the library to use their records in the project. That really does not scale as a process. You should use the type of free or shared use license that was suggested.

I also dispute Karen Calhoun’s explanation that only 2 % of a library’s records are original cataloging so that’s all they ever paid for. Excuse me. Libraries paid OCLC first time use fees that used to be $1.50 apiece. I believe we paid more than that for a 1.3 million recon project we did with OCLC. So we have literally paid OCLC millions of dollars. I would suggest that the purchasing and legal departments of universities would not allow them to sign up for OCLC under the terms of the proposed policy. So, OCLC is saying, pay us millions of dollars but you can only use those records if we say you can. I just don’t think institutions would agree. Not for these MARC records where the bulk of them could be had from LC for free or for a minimal subscription price.

OCLC is not advancing the interests of its members by trying to exert control over the use of MARC records. As I commented at the meeting, it is solidifying into a lump of rock in the stream and I think there should be a concern that the world will flow past and that will be the end of its usefulness. OCLC needs to have a different business plan instead of just depending on cataloging as the cash cow and then using such a lame policy to try to prop it up. You should put some kind of free use license on the records and charge for cataloging, ILL and other services like timely inclusion in Worldcat.org. Don’t try to rent out the records, or worse prevent their use.

I remember having to argue with developers at OCLC when I first started working there after being in a network. They were afraid to let libraries download MARC records into their local systems and tried to resist allowing that to happen (remember that’s how Innovative Interfaces got started? By screen scraping to do that). Imagine what would have happened if OCLC had maintained that stance and refused to let people download to their ILS’s . They would have gone elsewhere. The genie is out of the bottle. OCLC has not magic word to get it back. They need to move on to innovations, not protect records they never produced in the first place. They should find a way to help LC to continue to produce the many, many records we depend on getting from them. They are the ones who do the bulk of the work.

These various Web 2.0 projects (LibraryThing, etc) are possible, in some large sense, because there is this central standardized set of data. We all benefit from the existence of this large quality set of data.

I would, personally, favour some kind of situation where access to the dataset was readily available for people doing development work or non-commercial projects -- and, in particular, libraries who have contributed to the database shouldn't be charged -- AND there was also some setup for licensing the dataset to those who were ready to go with a commercial project. Such an arrangement would seem to protect all the stakeholders.

I know, I already had input. I hope this will be helpful, perhaps more than my earlier attempt to refute critics of the proposed Shared data agreement:

Dear OCLC,

Here's what I want as part of the intent and substance of a licensing agreement:

1. A mechanism to archive original, unedited bibliographic and holdings data contributed by members that they can access and use their own pure data without restriction. Build the trust to allow data of any contribution to remain the provence of the contributor but to also be licensed as part of a collective whole that is governed by the OCLC body as a whole.

2. A commitment to continue to broaden participation in OCLC by small institutions of limited means so that they can contribute and benefit.

3. A heads-up, collaborative approach to employing the rich resources of our collective efforts. Avoid short-term, top-down announcements after limited, behind the scenes consultations from now on - nobody's happy with that approach as I'm certain you have learned.

4. A willingness to be innovative, collaborative, and integrated with the rest of the information-based, networked world in concert with us as individual institutions/members, as well as on our behalf, including both large (Google, etc.) and smaller players. Allow hundreds of flowers to blossom in the bibliographic world (then cherry pick some of the good ones on our behalf, of course), increase the visibility and usefulness of library-originated data (whether traditional cataloging or expanded socially-created) through alliances and agreements with as many other information resources as is viable and fruitful. While doing so, be creative in looking for ways to lower our costs and develop revenue streams so that individual members benefit directly and indirectly.

5. A licensing agreement that gives the OCLC membership a mechanism to be involved/informed in approving/disapproving uses of our collective data. I don't have a clue what mechanism this will be but it can be worked out, I trust. Let's build trust relationships with as much flexibility as possible, while strengthening our collective position vis-a-vis the networked information world. Our survival might depend on this trust.

And with this in place, let's collaboratively create:

1. Easy-to-use, and user-configurable cataloging tools that easily integrate conventional bibliographic related data with any other information related to the material being described, including (but not limited to) reviews, comments, ratings, blogs, related web sites, videos, podcasts, tags, creator resources, how to get it, etc. I want bibliographic "records" that cease to be limited researchers/librarians tools and representations (while preserving that capability for those who want it), and for them to become, instead, socially-created, mutable representations of the resource described, including all useful and conceivable relationships. Some of this can be done with creative use of the bibliographic data libraries have traditionally contributed. Much, if not most of it, should come from users including the library community, scholarly community, content creators, and readers/viewers/listeners, etc. Let these tools be wiki-based with levels of authority for classes of users.

2. Cataloging tools that allow collaborative description and relationship building for *any* information resource - periodical articles, Wikipedia entries, viral videos, web comics, scholarly databases (and discrete parts thereof), author websites, publisher websites, etc. where each entry can start with just a couple of basic "facts" about the resource - what it's called and where to obtain it. Then let the crowd (catalogers and anyone else interested) work on these (at different levels as appropriate. If the resources being described are useful, authorized headings, standard number, rich RDA-compliant descriptions and the like will emerge quickly, along with anything else relevant. If not, there is at least minimal access until someone cares enough to expand it. Allow users to draw the relationships. Sure- integrate FRBR and other RDA tools but don't let those limit relationships and scope of description, integration, etc.

3. A range of discovery tools that are alive and intuitive, powered by bibliographic data and by other socially created data, with appearances and features that can be easily reconfigured by users. Think MySpace - every library (or other user) who is a participant can be as creative and integrated with other useful tools as they want to be (in a licensed environment). Right now, whether OpenLibrary, Koha, WorldCat, AquaBrowser, or any other representation of cataloging data I've seen, the interfaces look like, well, they were made by and for librarians. Kill the OPAC/catalog card approach as completely as possible except for users who decide to tailor their front end in that manner.

4. A bibliographic resource environment where catalogers roles can expand immensely in an ongoing, evolving manner so that their immense, acknowledged value does not go the way of the farrier. Some may continue to be expert in the nuances of bibliographic rules so that core data is high quality, and and continues to work the way we intend, some may become local facilitators to ensure that the data that comes into their institutions environment is useful and appropriate for the audiences they serve, some may be adept at integration with local or global tools and resources through programming or project management, some may contribute original cataloging whether in brief or in full bibliographic description, some could be taggers and information hounds looking for new resources to include in local and global records, some will be architects of the library metaverse, others will be knowledgeable representatives to governing and decision making bodies, etc.

5. Integration of user-data, both as contributed by individual users through optional, explicit registration processes, as well as anonomized extrapolated data so that we can create and facilitate resource discovery tools that are tailored to that user. I want a researcher looking for bibliographic data on how brain cells operate to get resources are based on a recognition of what environment the user is part of, what kinds of resources they have found useful before, how local or global they may find initially useful, means to connect them to what they seek as immediately as possible, etc. A middle school student in another part of the world would get a different set of results in an environment useful and appropriate to them.

6. Bibliographic resource description and discovery tools that are scalable and adaptable so that they are useful to anyone seeking bibliographic control of resources, from a library patron who wants to catalog their home collection of blue-ray discs who might be able to use our library-based tools for free (up to 200 items) as a registered patron of a member institution; to a scholarly society who needs a search/retrival tool for their archive of the manuscripts of an influential but little-known 15th century Portuguese poet and philosopher. They, too, could license our tools and have access to our data, while contributing their data as part of the bargain, and have a rich resource for their users easier and less expensively than other alternatives to develop it.

The OLAC (Online Audiovisual Catalogers) Cataloging Policy Committee has issued a statement of concern about OCLC's proposed new Policy for Use and Transfer of WorldCat(r) Records on behalf of the OLAC membership. This statement has been reviewed by the membership and endorsed by the executive board. The statement can be found at http://www.olacinc.org/drupal/capc_files/OLAConOCLCPolicyFinal.pdf.

Turo Technology LLP is a worker cooperative involved in support and development of Koha.org since 2003. Koha is a free and open source software (book) library management system written in perl and licensed under the GNU GPL. I'm a member of it.

We'd love to see WorldCat develop in a more compatible and Koha-friendly direction and hope that the new policy will be broadly supportive of cooperative values and principles. Can we help to organise a UK consultation event for OCLC members and other library cooperatives?