Forty years of tool sharing go by until times come where tools become much more valuable. Some really creative tool stores crop up and some of the coop members use them as well as (or instead of) their coop. However, it emerges the stores want to use the tool coops tools. If they can’t get them from the coop directly, they’ll try to get them from members. The governing board, without fully consulting the membership, decides that, while everyone who is a member can use the tools and even loan their own portion of the tools to the tool stores as long as it isn’t for-profit, if a tool store wants to use the tools, they need to come to agreement with the governing board.

Rallied in part by the cool tool stores (not evil tool stores, to any dufus who dares think this), who are very adept at 2.0 crowd sourcing their goals of using the tool coop’s tools without restriction, a large proportion of the members (not small but vocal) critique, attack and sometimes insult the governing board of the coop and those who try to say “Hey – these are our tools and, regardless of how flawed the board’s decision was, our coop needs to address this because it weighs heavily on the future of the coop.”

I’ve critiqued the policy myself and made my own somewhat ignorant suggestions. At the same time, I think the tool coop should look carefully at their relationship to the tools they own as well as cool tool stores (now and in the future) who want to use their tools and help the board craft some decisions about tool sharing.

But we’re getting far afield from Steve’s original food for thought, which wasn’t fundamentally a slam on OCLC. It was much more about upsetting a balance and having to backtrack before figuring out a better balance.

Your more fruitful way of interpreting it [the new/improved/revised/new TOS when it comes out iteration] is a nice trusting interpretation; however, many folks who disagree with it [the current/new/temporarily withdrawn TOS iteration] disagree with this more fruitful interpretation.

In my broad-strokes read of the language used, my impression strongly favored the “we (OCLC) own your stuff” side of the discussion. The we own the data and you can’t do x or y or z implications came through pretty strongly.

It needs work, just like Facebook’s needs work, too bad there wasn’t a trial balloon sent up instead of a unilateral “this will change” statement, in either situation.

It’s life, as long as the original authors of the faux pas don’t take the criticisms (especially the accurate, if in unfriendly tones ones) personally, a better agreement/terms will be worked out.

*shrug*

From the FAQ:
9. Is my library’s original cataloging governed by the Policy?
Your Use or Transfer of records designated in WorldCat as your original cataloging, are not governed by the Policy. See Section B of the Policy.

Your stuff is your stuff. If your library is an OCLC member, you pay for use of everybody’s stuff (1.1 billion records – what percentage is your library’s?). If you pay more than the value you receive, it might be time to bail.

Off for the weekend. Regards!

I see this as a crucial decision point (and thank goodness I’m *not* the decider. I tend to hope that the collaborative, non-commercial library world in the U.S., most prominently represented though OCLC, will develop and implement innovative, viable services that are integrated where our various users are. If we can’t (or bow out), then the commercial vendor community will surely do so. OCLC, for all of the missteps, has served collaboration tremendously for over 40 years. The environment has changed tremendously – I see the policy as more in-step with the environment than not (try obtaining all of any successful 2.0 giants data free of charge for any use, commercial or not to test the waters). Maybe I’m wrong, but it sure isn’t directly comparable to the Facebook controversy.