Given that the task force itself had trouble understanding the intent of some parts of the proposed OCLC policy (and they found at least one area where “OCLC staff seem unaware of this provision and unable to explain its intended meaning,” (5)) and given that the Task Force points out numerous areas of ambiguity and contradiction, I feel better about my own inability to really understand what was going on in the OCLC policy change.

Some of the most interesting parts of are a discussion or critique of the process by which OCLC wrote and put forward the policy:

The task force began its work with intent to focus mainly on the content of the policy document rather than on the process of its introduction, a process already widely acknowledged as flawed. In the course of our analyses and discussions, we came to the conclusion that in the context of the collective endeavor necessary to create and maintain the WorldCat database, process and content are inextricably intertwined. (7)

. . .

In the eyes of the community, the guidelines expressed a mutual social contract, and the new Policy represents an authoritarian, unilaterally imposed legal restriction. Given that “together OCLC and its member libraries make up the world’s largest consortium” (emphasis ours) [i.e., ARL's] and that the substance and nature of the new Policy is so significant, it comes as no surprise that the membership has responded negatively to the introduction of a unilateral contract by OCLC as a fait accompli. (8)

I also found one paragraph on unanimity and consensus to be particularly interesting:

There is not, and will not be, a universal viewpoint on all issues that are covered by a policy. There is not unanimity within the task force on the core issue: while the majority of members believe that it is desirable to have a policy that limits large-scale redistribution of records that could be harmful to the collective, it is not a unanimous view even within the small membership of the task force. But it is realistic to aim for consensus on a policy, i.e., agreement to follow a policy even though it is not identical in all ways to one’s individual, or even institutional, views. Certainly a process for member input and engagementnecessary for such consensus. (9)

And all those interesting parts don’t even begin to cover the part where they really fisk the policy itself, nor have I yet mentioned the appendix by a technology law and policy lawyer who examines the “Enforceability of OCLC Policy for Use and Transfer of WorldCat Records.” Again, if you care at all about this subject, you’ll want to read the report.

On a related note, Iris Jastram would like to see blog or email list posts by OCLC member libraries’ staff (not OCLC employees) who have come out in favor of the policy change. I would, too. I’m sure they are out there–if the ARL Task Force isn’t unanimous in its opinion, it is impossible that all librarians would be united–I just haven’t come across them. Drop Iris or me a link if you know where we can find one.

But then Jessamyn did pretty much the same post that I was going to do. Please read that if you haven’t already.

My main original contribution was going to be the observation that perhaps in the library blogosphere we have been so busy hating ALA and ILS vendors that we have forgotten to hate OCLC, too. In truth, I wasn’t inclined to be too sympathetic to OCLC’s point of view, but (as I would have said in this now-mostly-redundant post) I would really like to read something written by a person who wasn’t either on OCLC’s payroll, or intimately involved in a project directly threatened by the OCLC “clarifications.”

Then my main man Josh Neff posted a link to FriendFeed for Stefano Mazzocchi’s post Rule #1 for Surviving Paradigm Shifts: Don’t S**t Where You Eat. So I was going to link to that and say that it was one of the more convincing posts I have read about the issue.

But then Jessamyn did pretty much the same post that I was going to do. Again.

So let me just say this before Jessamyn can say it. Mazzocchi has a lot to say about OCLC’s monopoly and how they can best protect it. He says in part:

OCLC can do exactly one of two things now:

1. open up itself so that it becomes the de-facto centroid of an otherwise opened and more diverse ecosystem, where people are excited to contribute to them and not forced to.
2. try to use all the power they have to stop others from competing with them and displace them.

The first one seems like the most risky one, but it’s really the second.

and

By locking the place down even more and alienating a bunch of alpha-librarians, they’re doing nothing but catalyze the movement that will eventually lead to their obsolescence and the establishment of another organization, similar in every aspect to OCLC save for one: the short sightedness in how to entice contribution without alienating the contributors.

Coincidentally, I was reading Matthew Battles’ Library: An Unquiet History today and came across this interesting tidbit on page 29 about the Library of Alexandria:

In an effort to stop the growth of the libraries at Rhodes and Pergamum, both of which threatened Alexandria’s preeminence, the city’s rulers banned the export of papyrus. The move backfired, however, spurring the Pergamenes to invent parchment (charta pergamenum), which for its strength and reusability would prove to be the preferred writing medium in Europe for more than a thousand years.

That seems like a reasonably appropriate cautionary tale.