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OCLC Review Board of Shared Data Creation & Stewardship recommends to “Formally withdraw the proposed [WorldCat] policy” 2009 May 20

The OCLC Review Board of Shared Data Creation & Stewardship has posted the presentation slides and a recording from their update to Members Council on May 18. I haven’t been able to connect to their streaming server, but the PDF shows, that among other things, they have recommended to “Formally withdraw the proposed policy” on WorldCat record use.

This is great news for those who were very concerned about the proposed policy and the process that was originally used to try to put it in place. They do say that a policy is needed but stress that it should not be this policy, They have also said that the Nov. 16, 1987 “Guidelines for the Use and Transfer of OCLC-Derived Records” should be kept in place until a new policy is created. They have further recommendations about the direction of this that I believe are well reason and well thought out. Key among them is the recommended direction of:

Devise a process for drafting and maintaining a new policy that:
• Includes formal participation by members of the Global Council, the OCLC Board, and the OCLC Strategic Leadership Team
• Incorporates input from the broader community
• Recognizes the complexity of the information ecosystem in which OCLC and its members operate
• Is transparent

and that the new policy should:

• Be based on clearly articulated principles
• Impart confidence to members and partners building strategies predicated on WorldCat
• Support innovation

I am extremely happy that the Review Board has come to these conclusions and I hope that OCLC decides to follow them and creates a fair policy using a transparent process that does indeed support innovation. Three cheers to Jennifer Younger and the rest of the review board members!

ELUNA, UUGI, and CODI endorse ICOLC Statement on the Proposed OCLC Policy for Use and Transfer of WorldCat Records 2009 May 15

I am happy to report that three major independent library automation user groups have agreed to co-endorse the International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) Statement on the Proposed OCLC Policy for Use and Transfer of WorldCat Records, dated May 11, 2009. The user groups represented are Ex Libris Users of North America (ELUNA), Unicorn Users Group International (UUGI) and Customers of Dynix, Inc. (CODI), Combined they represent over 2500 libraries. This is the first time I am aware of different library automation user groups coming together to co-endorse any statement or position. As a member of the ELUNA Steering Committee I am also happy to say that it came together very quickly. It is apparent that many librarians and organizations representing librarians are very concerned about the proposed policy. The statement reads:

The leadership of three library vendor user communities in North America have agreed to co-endorse the the International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) Statement on the Proposed OCLC Policy for Use and
Transfer of WorldCat Records, dated May 11, 2009 (http://www.library.yale.edu/consortia/statement-oclcrecorduse.htm).

The Ex Libris Users of North America has 313 institutional members, including consortia, in the United States, Canada, Mexico and the Carribean and represents approximately 1950 libraries in these countries that license Ex Libris’ library applications and systems.

The Unicorn Users Group International (UUGI) represents 250 institutional members, including consortia, in the United States and Canada representing libraries that use the SIRSI Unicorn ILS.

The Customers of Dynix, Inc. (CODI) represents 532 institutional member libraries, including consortia, in the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom representing libraries that use the Dynix ILS.

Pascal V. Calarco
ELUNA Steering Committee Chair, 2009-2010
University of Notre Dame/Michiana Academic Library Consortium
Notre Dame, IN

Carla Clark,
Chair, UUGI
Noel Memorial Library
Louisiana State University in Shreveport
Shreveport, LA

Colleen Medling
CODI President
Salt Lake County Library Services
Salt Lake City, UT

ICOLC “Statement on the Proposed OCLC Policy for Use and Transfer of WorldCat Records.” 2009 May 12

The International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) has released it’s “Statement on the Proposed OCLC Policy for Use and Transfer of WorldCat Records.” I think it is good to see them issue a statement on this. I wish it was worded a little stronger, but it still calls for OCLC to start-a-new which would be a great thing. I hope, and expect, that we see more library organizations weigh in on this.

Reading Dracula 2009 May 5

Thanks to the power of twitter, I have found a blog that is publishing Dracula in “real time.” Bram Stoker’s Dracula is an epistolary novel, which is a novel written as a series of letters or diary entries. The blog is adding new entries on a the day that it was written by the narrator “so that the audience may experience the drama as the characters would have.”

I have never read Dracula but I have subscribed to the Dracula Atom feed and will be following along. This is a great use of social media and I suspect others will publish epistolary novels this way.

Google Public Data

Google just announced a new Public Data Search Feature. You can use it to search for population or unemployment rates in the US. Just go to Google and type something like “population broome county” and you will see the new feature. It is pretty neat but I’d like to know what other data might be available. As far as I can tell from the help page right now they only have US population and unemployment data. Hopefully they’ll be adding more data sources in the future.