Got an email from an alarmed faculty colleague this morning about an article in Inside Higher Education (November 14, 2008). The article is called “Maelstrom Over Metadata,” and is about OCLC and their recently revised “Policy for Use and Transfer of WorldCat Records” Says Karen Calhoun, OCLC’s vice president for WorldCat and metadata services,, “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.”
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/11/14/worldcat
http://www.oclc.org/worldcat/catalog/policy/policy.htm