Clarification regarding WorldCat membership
april 19, 2012 Martin
There are a couple of problematic areas which ultimately lead to the decision to end negotiations.
First, the asymmetrical nature of the relationship regarding transfer and re-use of records. OCLC is given very broad rights to records uploaded to WorldCat, including commercial re-use. Downloaded records on the other hand keep their status as “WorldCat records”, regardless of where they were originally created, and as such the guidelines of the WorldCat Rights and Responsibilities (WCRR) apply. This leaves us and the participating LIBRIS libraries in a situation where we do not have full control over the description of our collections. Under the WCRR we are discouraged from exposing and exporting data in whatever way we choose, which we see as an essential right.
Secondly, the WCRR states that every member library should “work to ensure the long-term viability of WorldCat” and “not engage in [...] activities that diminish the value of WorldCat [...]“. While we definitely see value in WorldCat as a service, we simply cannot, as a National Library, bind ourselves to support a single corporate entity. We need to support competition as well as cooperation, and to do so we must treat all discovery services equally and/or support the creation of any number of large scale discovery services.
Thirdly, the National Library of Sweden see a strategic importance in complete openness for bibliographic data, namely that of competition when it comes to services built upon it. We have chosen CC0 for the National Bibliography and authority file. We chose it because we see a problem with attribution licenses such as ODB-BY and CC-BY when it comes to re-use of data over time, for example so called ”attribution stacking”.
To this end we urge OCLC to allow members to treat downloaded records as their own, including releasing them under any open license such as CC0. We feel that this would strengthen rather than diminish OCLCs strong status as a service provider to the library community.
Hyllningar!
right on
[...] [...]
I support this 100%!
Bravo!
Again I find myself wondering:
Has the Norwegian BIBSYS consortium (which includes the Norwegian national library) really been able to secure terms with OCLC that are better than the ones Libries are walking away from here?
[...] In as direct and unflinching an account as you are likely to see from a library, Sweden’s LIBRIS nationella bibliotekssystem explains 3 reasons why OCLC WorldCat terms don’t really work for them: http://librisbloggen.kb.se/2012/04/19/clarification-regarding-worldcat-membership-2/ [...]
Vad är det som är så positivt med att vi inte vill samarbeta med 70.000 andra bibliotek och över
30 nationalbibliotek.?
Vill ni leka i egen sandlåda?
Jan
OCLC has continued to meet with National Library representatives. We reassure all parties that use of their data in ways mandated by national mission will not be circumscribed. There are already many circumstances in which consortia and group catalogs are contributed to OCLC and the individual library members then extract their own data for subsequent use and transfer to other parties. In addition we have had direct discussions with Europeana management and are planning follow up meetings to ensure that libraries and OCLC can feel confident about contributing to Europeana under their Data Exchange Agreement. Finally, on 18 April the OCLC Global Council in order to advise the OCLC Board of Trustees passed a resolution endorsing the Open Data Commons Attribution License (ODC-BY) as consistent with the WorldCat Rights and Responsibilities for the OCLC Cooperative. This license says users of the data are free to share, adapt and re-use without restriction as long as the user provides attribution. The OCLC cooperative is taking all of these steps in order to ensure that members who choose to release their data can do so in a responsible way that supports innovative re-use.
I would like to endorse Eric van Lübecks comment, returning from OCLC-Global Council meeting where the Open Data Commons Attribute License was discussed and supported. I can see two conflicting concepts, on the one hand totally free and open bibliographic data (which I absolutely support) and on the other hand OCLC:s tradition of being a strong cooperative organization with a strong membership identification, at the same time recognizing the increasing demand of free and open data also to non-members. The proposed license still requires contribution (which is a matter of interpretation), but it is a step in the right direction. I would encourage the National Library to be open to further discussions with OCLC if the outcome of their meetings with Europeana is positive.