<div dir="ltr"><div><div><div>Are we not users? <br><br></div>I am vexed by OCLC's attitude and more than a little disheartened. Given our small numbers, data driven decisions hold little promise for accommodating present and future concerns of the rare materials community. <br><br></div>While we are not an IR library, we frequently use the information within those records to aid in identification, when navigating a sea of inferior records.<br><br></div>How did a feudal business model, where we create the product but have no voice in how that product is maintained or delivered, survive into the 21st century?<br><br> <br><div><div>
<div><font face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="font-family:"Garamond","serif";font-size:12pt">Will Evans</span></b></font></div>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><b><span style="font-family:"Garamond","serif";font-size:12pt">Chief Rare Materials Catalog Librarian</span></b></p>
<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><b><span style="font-family:"Garamond","serif";font-size:12pt">Library of the Boston Athenaeum</span></b></p>
<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><b><span style="font-family:"Garamond","serif";font-size:12pt">10 1/2 Beacon Street</span></b></p>
<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><b><span style="font-family:"Garamond","serif";font-size:12pt">Boston, MA 02108</span></b></p>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><b><span style="font-family:"Garamond","serif";font-size:12pt">Tel: 617-227-0270 ext. 224</span></b></p>
<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><b><span style="font-family:"Garamond","serif";font-size:12pt">Fax: 617-227-5266 </span></b></p>
<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><b><span style="font-family:"Garamond","serif";font-size:12pt"><a href="http://www.bostonathenaeum.org/" target="_blank"><span>www.bostonathenaeum.org</span></a></span></b></p>
<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><b><span style="font-family:"Garamond","serif";font-size:12pt"></span></b> <br></p></div><br><br><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, May 14, 2015 at 10:27 AM, Lapka, Francis <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:francis.lapka@yale.edu" target="_blank">francis.lapka@yale.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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<p><span style="font-family:"Georgia",serif">Yesterday’s webinar on the demise of Institutions Records and the transition to Local Bibliographic Data was primarily a Q-and-A. Compared to the discussion that Yale catalogers had with an OCLC rep in April, there
seemed much less ambiguity that OCLC has no plans to provide access to the local data of any institution other than your own, no matter how much we say that this is important to us. Moderators held firm to the talking point: OCLC data suggests that its users
don’t care about IRs.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:"Georgia",serif">It’s tempting to think that the OCLC data is somehow wrong, but I’m inclined to accept their conclusion at face value: users who care about copy-specific descriptions generally don’t see OCLC as a useful discovery
tool. So is there much point in investing energy trying to make OCLC fulfill a role for which it is ill-suited? If we want a mechanism that enables searching of copy-specific data across institutions, we should probably look elsewhere.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:"Georgia",serif">Francis<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Francis Lapka · Catalog Librarian<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Yale Center for British Art<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><a href="tel:203.432.9672" value="+12034329672" target="_blank">203.432.9672</a> ·
<a href="mailto:francis.lapka@yale.edu" target="_blank">francis.lapka@yale.edu</a><u></u><u></u></span></p>
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