This has been an eventful spring and summer for OCLC news and developments. I attended the Users Council meeting in May where I learned about major changes that are coming to OCLC. Then there were the committee events at the American Association of Law Libraries annual meeting in Minneapolis in July. My column for this issue will focus on these two meetings, along with the changes that are coming soon to OCLC.

OCLC Users Council Meeting - Dublin, Ohio, May 20-22, 2001

From May 20th through the 22nd, 2001, I attended the OCLC Users Council meeting at OCLC's headquarters in Dublin, Ohio as the representative of law libraries. It was a fascinating, eye-opening meeting. It was the first time I had ever been in OCLC's headquarters (I had driven by it a couple of times). If you are ever in the Columbus area, I recommend going out to Dublin to see the place. There are three large buildings, named for three previous presidents of OCLC: Kilgour, Brown, and Smith. The meetings were first in the Kilgour building, and then in the Smith building. The delegates were mostly directors or high-level administrators in either academic or public libraries–there were very few special libraries represented. The head librarian from the National Geographic Society was present, along with several librarians from federal government agency libraries. I was the only law librarian in attendance. I also had the opportunity to meet a number of OCLC administrators, including OCLC president Jay Jordan, Richard Van Orden, and Glenn Patton.

The meetings themselves included several full group sessions, and then smaller interest group discussions. The large group meetings included addresses by Jay Jordan, Users Council President Larry Alford of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a keynote address by Sarah Thomas of Cornell University. Jay Jordan's address discussed the past year at OCLC, along with future goals and developments. Larry Alford's talk was about the Users Council and the changes in governance and collaboration with OCLC's administration, trustees, and staff. Sarah Thomas' keynote address was titled "OCLC's Metadata Strategy and the Catalog as Portal to the Internet." The basic gist of her address was published in the May/June 2001 issue of the OCLC Newsletter. I would encourage you to read it and give me your reaction.

The small group session I attended was for Collections and Technical Services. This was where I first heard the details of the new interface for cataloging and metadata services that is being developed and implemented. This was the most valuable session I attended at the meeting (more on this topic later in the column). It was very interesting listening to OCLC talk about their research and future developments that will change the way we do our work on OCLC.

New Interface for Cataloging and Metadata Services

The most important topic that was discussed at the Users Council meeting (from my perspective) was the migration of the OCLC Cataloging and Metadata Services to a single interface. To quote OCLC's brochure describing this:

"OCLC is developing a new interface for cataloging and metadata services based on innovative browser and Windows technology. This new interface supports OCLC's strategy to transform WorldCat from a bibliographic database and online union catalog into a globally linked information resource of text, graphics, sound and motion. ... The new, single interface offers the benefits of a web browser and the versatility of Windows-based software. ... Enhancements to the new interface will be phased in over several years. At the end of the implementation period, the new interface will replace all OCLC cataloging and metadata interfaces currently in use."

It is currently projected that the first release of the new interface will be in July of 2002. Passport will not be supported by OCLC after December, 2002, but it will continue to work with any of the Windows versions up to Windows 2000 until December 31, 2003. After that, Passport will die and either the new interface or CatME must be used. The conversion will be gradual from July 2002 to December 2003, but libraries need to start thinking about it and planning for the change. If you do not have the brochure with its guide and time line for the migration, then I urge you to go to OCLC's website and print it off. In addition, there is a great deal of additional information about this conversion on the website. The address is: . On the left side of the page there is a box titled "Cataloging and Metadata Services." This is where the migration brochure is located, along with frequently asked questions and news. There will be much more to talk about on this topic in the coming year.

Committee Meeting and Open Discussion - Minneapolis, Minnesota

The OCLC/WLN Committee met for its open discussion at the AALL annual meeting on Tuesday, July 17th at 7:30 am at the Hilton hotel in downtown Minneapolis. Twenty-nine people got up early that morning and came to the meeting. Our guests were Kay Covert and Donn Hoffmann of OCLC, and Carla Dewey Urban and Virginia Dudley of MINITEX. Kay Covert had made a presentation the previous day at the session discussing CORC. At the committee meeting, she discussed the new OCLC global strategy, the migration of cataloging and metadata to the new interface, and developments with CORC. Much of the subsequent discussion focused on CORC, with many questions and comments concerning frontline, operational issues. Carla Urban commented to me afterwards about the insightful and important questions that were asked by the attendees. In addition, Richard Amelung of St. Louis University Law Library spoke on his role as a member of the Collections and Technical Services Advisory Committee for OCLC. Richard encouraged people to send him comments and suggestions for the committee to present to OCLC. Then at the conclusion of the meeting, a handmade afghan donated by Susan Chinoransky was raffled off to Deena Frazier of the Boston College Law Library. Congratulations Deena, and thank you Susan!

Closing Comments

In closing, I would like to quote Users Council President Larry Alford in his talk to the Users Council delegates, guests, and OCLC administrators and staff on May 21, 2001. He said: "I believe that, in fact, we in libraries fully understand we are in the business of serving the information needs of our faculties, our students, our communities, and the citizens who make up those communities. We as delegates to Users Council are in the business of making sure that the information needs of each and every one of those individuals is represented to OCLC."

My feeling after that Users Council meeting was that our views as technical services users of OCLC are largely not represented by the Users Council (now Members Council) to OCLC. There seems to be little recognition that we are the ones who helped build the WorldCat database record by record, adhering to standards that provide for clean data and enhance retrieval results. We need to articulate our views and concerns more–to our regional networks, to our representatives on the Members Council, and to OCLC staff and administrators. Having Richard Amelung on the OCLC Collections and Technical Services Advisory Committee is an excellent opportunity to promote our specific needs and opinions. We need to communicate with these individuals this coming year.