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OCLC Quick Start. Is it game over? 2009 April 28

Towards the end of last week, OCLC announced a “quick start” version of the OCLC WorldCat Local service. I was at ELAG last week a and traveling so I didn’t have a lot of time to look at it until today when I watched the Webinar they offered. There are really two separate, but related things going on here. One is that they are providing a limited version of Local WorldCat at no additional cost to First search Libraries. They are calling it WorldCat Local “quick start”. I think that is a silly name so I’m calling it Mini-Local World Cat. The other part of the news is that they are expanding Local WorldCat to include more traditional Integrated Library Systems (ILS) functionality. While both a significant announcements, I think the latter part is more game changing.

First, lets look at the examine Mini-Local World Cat. This new service “provides a single search result that delivers your library’s resources and those of the world’s libraries.” It is basically another discovery layer that can be used on top, more likely at this point, in addition to your ILS. It doesn’t have all of the features of WorldCat Local, but it has most of the features a single library would want. According to the FAQ, some features that the “full” version of WorldCat Local has that the mini version does not include:

• Interoperability with multiple ILSs
• Visibility of group/consortium-level collections in search results
• Interoperability with consortial borrowing systems to surface smart delivery options to searchers.
• Ability to display branch-level holdings when Local Holdings Records are present.
• Full suite of statistical reports.
• Expanded search functionality coming in July 2009:
  • Search electronic content in OCLC and non-OCLC services
  • Integrate results from WorldCat and your library’s licensed content services in a single result list
  • Initially, 100 of the most widely used, licensed resources from multiple providers will be active on the service, with more databases and other materials being added each month

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What does this mean for libraries? I’m not sure really, but I do think it does take aim at some of the discovery products that interact with the ILS. Proprietary products such as Encore and Primo as well as Open Source projects like BlackLight, VUFind and xC are now on notice that another competitor is in the marketplace with a great price point and because of OCLC’s monopoly on library metadata, it is going to be hard, if not impossible, for other products to offer some of the functionality that the mini Local Worldcat can (and this is even more the case for the full version). If my library can get a modern discovery tool at no additional cost with the power of the WorldCat data behind it, why should I pay extra for something like Encore or go to the trouble of installing, hosting, and maintaining VUFind?

The other portion of this announcement is the part about expanding Local Worldcat to include more traditional ILS features like circulation and acquisitions and moving them into the cloud. As Karen Combs points out, this isn’t really a surprise. They have been doing a number of things building in this direction. In many respects, this also isn’t a new idea. Ex Libris announced they wanted to do this two years ago with their new URM product. The difference is OCLC has the data to make this work and with the proposed changes to the OCLC WorldCat record use and transfer policy, they may not be able to get it. As Andrew Pace says, this is “a first step to WorldCat Local and to a truly next-generation cooperative library management service.”

In many ways having something like OCLC do this could be a good thing for libraries. Very few libraries are in finical position to do things that OCLC can. This type of innovation may be what libraries need to survive and thrive into the future. But at the same time, danger abounds. With OCLC controlling the data and the software, choices will become limited and OCLC may not always be on the fore-front of innovation. If this move servilely inhibits innovation by the vendor and Open Source community, we may find ourselves in trouble. As Tim Spalding points out, this “move casts new light on [OCLC's] Policy defenses. OCLC isn’t ‘curating’ library records; it’s leveraging them to enter a new market. WorldCat isn’t a ‘switching mechanism’ to local catalogs. It will replace them.”

Two things really are loaming over this announcement that I think will have to be addressed at some point. One is the record use policy creating an illegal monopoly? In many ways I think what they are doing, while in a smaller venue, is more monopolistic like then say what Microsoft did with Windows and Internet Explorer. The second issue is OCLC’s status as a nonprofit membership cooperative. As Josh Hadro writes, citing Carl Grant, in his Tough Questions Emerge on OCLC’s Competitive Advantage and Data Policies piece, “OCLC seems remarkably and increasingly similar to the for-profit vendors in the marketplace.” The non-profit status allows OCLC a huge finical benefit compared to companies such as Ex Libris or III. Between the non-profit and record control, I have to imagine someone will call the bluff and bring some sort of legal challenge. I don’t know what a result of such a challenge will be, but it will be interesting. I think libraries ought to look at what giving all this power to OCLC will mean for libraries in the long run. Not just from a monopolization standpoint, but also from an outsourcing situation. Do we want to outsource many of our core back-office systems to OCLC and the cloud? What are the ramifications of such a decision. Individual libraries should look at this closely before jumping aboard the OCLC cloud bandwagon. In some cases maybe it is worth the risk, but in many cases it may not be and only by evaluating alll the issues surrounding this will libraries be able to make an informed choice.

As they say, may you live in interesting times. This is certainly an interesting time in library technology.