
Stealing Your Library: The OCLC Powergrab - soundsop
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/oclcscam
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bdittmer
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.

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

~~~
bootload
_"... 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?

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Raphael
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.

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thinkcomp
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.

