This list has exhibited interest in the revision of the OCLC Guidelines on
the Use and Transfer of WorldCat Records that happened a while back, and the
controversy that led to its withdrawal and the creation of an entirely new
process to produce another draft. Therefore, I’m pleased to let you know
that earlier today the OCLC Record Use Policy Council, made up of OCLC
members and two OCLC staff members (list below), notified the membership
that the new draft policy is available for review and feedback. I’m certain
you will find that it differs in some fairly dramatic ways from the previous
revision attempt, and reflects both the rights and responsibilities of OCLC
member libraries in creating and maintaining a vital and effective metadata
aggregation and the important services that can be built upon it.

Please read the draft policy and feel free to send your comments or
questions to the Council at [log in to unmask] Thanks,
Roy


TO: OCLC Members
FROM: OCLC Record Use Policy Council Co-Chairs Barbara Gubbin, Director,
Jacksonville Public Library, USA; and Jennifer Younger, President-Elect,
OCLC
               Global Council and Edward H. Arnold Director of Hesburgh
Libraries, University of Notre Dame, USA
RE: Next-generation policy for WorldCat records—open for community review

DATE: April 7, 2010

The OCLC Record Use Policy Council members have been working for the past
few months to develop the next generation of a WorldCat use policy, and we
are pleased to announce that the draft document, WorldCat Rights and
Responsibilities for the OCLC Cooperative
<http://www.oclc.org/worldcat/catalog/policy/default.htm> , is open for
community review.

This Council, convened by the OCLC Board of Trustees last September, has
produced a new draft document that incorporates many suggestions raised by
the community over the past year. For example, rather than using legal
language, we have drafted the new policy as a code of good practices,
intended to outline the rights and responsibilities of OCLC members with
regard to the use of WorldCat records.

We intend for this document to help inform the decision-making process for
member library leaders as they seek to innovate around the shared resource
that is WorldCat. We have sought to encourage the widespread use of WorldCat
data while also supporting the viability and utility of WorldCat and the
OCLC network of services.

The draft policy is not final. Between now and the end of May, we very much
want your feedback. We hope you will take the time to review the draft
policy carefully, and let us know your thoughts. You can post comments to
the community forum <http://community.oclc.org/recorduse> , send an e-mail
with your thoughts to [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> , or
register to attend a webinar
<http://www.oclc.org/worldcat/catalog/policy/council/default.htm> where you
can ask questions and submit feedback to members of the Record Use Policy
Council. We will continue to add content to the accompanying FAQ
<http://www.oclc.org/worldcat/catalog/policy/questions/default.htm> as we
get more questions from the community review process.

We plan to send a revised version of the draft policy to the OCLC Board of
Trustees at the end of May for final review and approval. We anticipate that
a final document will be published mid-calendar year 2010.

Many thanks are due to all the members and librarians who commented over the
past year and whose feedback helped us formulate this new document. We would
especially like to thank the members of the Record Use Policy Council:
· ChewLeng Beh, Global Council Delegate and Chair, OCLC Asia Pacific
Regional Council; and Senior Director, Singapore National Library Board,
Singapore
· Raymond Bérard, Global Council Delegate and Director, ABES, France
· Karen Calhoun, Vice President, OCLC WorldCat and Metadata Services,
OCLC, USA
· Klaus Ceynowa, Global Council Delegate and Deputy Director General,
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Germany
· Christopher Cole, Global Council Delegate and Associate Director
for Technical Services, National Agriculture Library, USA
· Lorcan Dempsey, Vice President, OCLC Research and Chief Strategist,
OCLC, USA
· Nancy Eaton, Dean of University Libraries and Scholarly
Communications, Penn State University, USA
· Clifford A. Lynch, Executive Director, Coalition for Networked
Information (CNI), USA
· Brian E. C. Schottlaender, Global Council Delegate and The Audrey
Geisel University Librarian, UC San Diego Libraries, USA
· Lamar Veatch, Global Council Delegate and State Librarian, Georgia
Public Library Service–University System of Georgia, USA