Whether you’re a member of the “worldwide library cooperative” or not, there’s plenty of value to be gleaned from spending some time listening to the podcast recordings of OCLC’s most recent Members Council meeting, where a number of the issues we’ve been expounding for a while get the OCLC treatment.

For example, Lorcan Dempsey in “OCLC’s Strategy Going Forward” (mp3) emphasises the need to push library data and services out of library systems and out - at ‘web scale’ - into the network flow, raising the visibility of library content and making it available for aggregation and integration with systems and data far beyond the walls of the library. Lorcan usefully distinguishes between the various requirements at ‘global’, ‘group’ and ‘local’ scales with his postulating about the WorldCat Grid; ideas that resonate extremely well with our own consideration of the Platform and its local integration through solutions such as Talis Keystone.

Robin Murray in “The Future of OCLC Services for Worldwide Collaboration” (mp3), carries forward some of OCLC’s new ideas around the WorldCat Grid, placing a bit more flesh on the bones that Lorcan sketched out and stressing the need for data and capabilities to be programmatically available (via APIs) for inclusion in the applications of third parties. This is logical, but actually represents quite a shift from current offerings such as WorldCat.org which, although good, draws users back to a destination site; even when it pretends to reach out in the form of its downloadable search box… I was interested to hear Robin say that OCLC should syndicate their capabilities to third parties, in order that those third parties are able to build high quality web scale services of their own. He describes this idea as controversial, but it’s a key rationale behind a Platform such as ours… and such as the one that OCLC now (rightly) appear to believe they need. On a Platform, anyone should be able to build and deliver the user-facing services, and any provider of those services should have equal opportunities to compete with one another and with the Platform provider on a level (Platform-supported) playing field. Robin also notes that “we need to remember that not everyone will start in WorldCat.org.” Too true, but I’m not sure that the corollary really is to focus upon getting WorldCat records for books further up the rankings at Google and other search engines. He goes on, too, to talk about various WorldCat properties as “natural entry points” for various things, which jars somewhat with earlier discussion of Platforms, Grids, and level playing fields. Something like the WorldCat Grid (or Talis Platform) might, actually, be most successful when it’s wholly invisible to the end user. Can people grasp that, and can we develop ways to measure value that don’t require public brand recognition, or eyeballs landing on web pages?

I agree with a lot of what they had to say. After all, most of it is what we are doing. One issue that none of the speakers really addressed (and which I have a few times) is how they get around the Innovator’s Dilemma and survive effectively cannibalising their own existing revenue streams whilst building a new - and more inclusive - business model upon which to move forward. The existing club, with its (intermittently masked) North American biases, exorbitant entry requirements, and questionable views on the openness of data cannot survive the changes that OCLC increasingly appear to recognise as being necessary. It’s great to see so many of OCLC’s management team now publicly talking the talk, and I await some clearer signs that the great ship is gradually turning, and that they can walk the walk with equal conviction.

If OCLC now genuinely recognises the need to play within an ecosystem that they cannot control, and if OCLC are serious about seeing a Platform that delivers real value to a greater set of libraries than simply those able to afford their current charging regime, then Talis is willing, ready, and able to work with them now and into the future. So how about it OCLC? Can we work together to drive these changes through for the benefit of libraries and their users? Can we take the hard decisions, and disrupt antiquated yet comfortable business models to nurture capabilities in an ecosystem with the potential to be so much larger than anything we can currently reach? You know where I am, and I look forward to the call…

Today’s picture from Flickr - Platforms, geddit? - is by Raphael Ullmi.

Technorati Tags: Library 2.0, OCLC, open data, Platforms, Podcasting, Semantic Web, Talis, Talis Platform, Web 2.0, Web 3.0, web services

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