Archive of OCLC WorldCat Policy as posted 2008-11-02

I noticed last night (Sunday, November 2nd, 2008) that the new and much-anticipated / feared OCLC WorldCat Policy had been posted. As far as the clarified terms went, I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt until they were actually posted. I was first alerted to the freshly released policy by Terry Reese's initial analysis and was fascinated by the discussion in the comments.

Then I noticed this morning on the AUTOCAT mailing list ("OCLC New Policy down after one day?") that the new policy had been pulled and replaced by

We are reconsidering some aspects of the policy. More information will be available in the near future.

Very interesting. That's not even enough time for most interested parties to read the policy and provide feedback.

Luckily, I made use of Zotero last night to capture a snapshot of the freshly released policy. So here, for your pleasure, is the archived version (retrieved Sun 02 Nov 2008 10:24:15 PM EST according to Zotero - and how sad a statement is that about my life that I'm cruising the library 'nets on Sunday evenings?) of the OCLC policy that had been posted and then was immediately yanked. I'm hoping that this helps informed discussion lead towards a reconsidered policy that reflects direct input from OCLC contributors.

Full disclosure: my library is not an OCLC Member library, not from any ideological stance but because I haven't had time to contribute records yet. Kind of busy with the Evergreen thing, you know? But we pay for WorldCat and some other OCLC services and intend to become members. On a personal note, I think we would best be served by a plurality of services developed using the metadata to which all of the OCLC Member institutions contribute.