FINAL REPORT of the OCLC REVIEW BOARD ON PRINCIPLES OF SHARED DATA CREATION AND STEWARDSHIP.

              FINAL REPORT of the OCLC REVIEW BOARD ON
PRINCIPLES OF SHARED DATA CREATION AND STEWARDSHIP
1
June 22, 2009
TO: Larry Alford, Chair
OCLC Board of Trustees
Jan Ison, President
OCLC Global Council
CC: Jay Jordan, CEO, OCLC
FR: Jennifer Younger, Chair
OCLC Review Board on Principles of Shared Data Creation and Stewardship
RE: FINAL REPORT
I. Policy rollout, reception and formation of the OCLC Review Board
OCLC issued a proposed Policy on the Use and Transfer of WorldCat Records ( Policy) on
November 4, 2008. The proposed Policy was accompanied by a “ Frequently Asked Questions
( FAQ)” document. These documents were intended as a replacement for the Guidelines for Use
and Transfer of OCLC- Derived Records, issued on November 16, 1987. As issued, the Policy
had an intended effective date of November 19, 2008. Although OCLC had consulted with some
OCLC members, the proposed Policy was a surprise to many in the community. Reactions from
both OCLC members and non- members were immediate, numerous and primarily negative .
Subsequently, the OCLC Board of Trustees postponed the implementation of the Policy and
formed this review board.
In addressing the OCLC Members Council on February 9, 2009, Larry Alford, Chair, OCLC
Board of Trustees, posed three questions, of which two are relevant here::
1. Can we agree that WorldCat and the ability to perform and record iterative updates to
records, so that the intellectual effort of one librarian builds on the intellectual effort
of the next, is worth preserving?
2. Is an international union catalog of records important for the promotion of research
and learning and the support of teaching around the world?
He went on to note that the responses he had received to these questions were “ a universal and
enthusiastic yes.” Similarly, although input from the broader community identified numerous
issues and requested that the proposed Policy be withdrawn, the community in large numbers
asked not only that a new record use policy be developed, but also that it be developed with
member participation. These requests from the OCLC member and non- member community
reaffirmed the need for and value of sustaining WorldCat. With the need to sustain WorldCat as
the basis for moving forward, Larry Alford and Loretta Parham, then President of OCLC