Stealing Your Library: The OCLC Powergrab

aaronsw.com

44 points·soundsop··5 comments

Around here OCLC (Columbus, OH - where it's headquartered) is known as a place developers go to retire. Pretty good pay, flex time, good benefits and a sweet campus. Their time tables are also huge so it's a good place to go if you don't mind taking your good old time finishing projects. I cannot really comment on anything else, although the few people I've known to work there enjoy it. Personally I think the slow timetables would drive me up a wall.

Any book that's worth reading will be scanned, run through OCR, and distributed for free. Google IS the catalogue. End of story.

"... Any book that's worth reading will be scanned, run through OCR, and distributed for free. Google IS the catalogue. End of story. ..."

You are right, replacing one monopoly with another is one way to end the story. What is wrong with an open alternative?

Nothing wrong. The problem is that there's no such thing as a book any more. It's all just text. Any search engine will do.

According to this:

http://oregonstate.edu/~reeset/blog/archives/582

one of your main issues has been addressed. As for the other, it's true that the OCLC shouldn't view itself as a for-profit entity that needs lock-in to survive when all of its member organizations are non-profits for good reason.

That all being said, I think WorldCat is a great product, and when you consider that most libraries use SirsiDynix or some other horrible on-line catalog, it's not too surprising that the people at OCLC don't trust libraries to make good IT decisions for themselves.

As far as your own product (Open Library) goes, I think it looks nice, but I guess I don't understand the benefits very well.

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