This morning’s Inside Higher Ed features a short article on a “new” WorldCat policy that requires organizations displaying WorldCat records to attach what amounts to a “terms and conditions” contract to the records whenever they appear. Apparently this shocked and horrified many in the Open Access community. I am not quite sure why they’re shocked.

During my years in library and information science school, I came to see OCLC as a membership organization in the time-honored tradition of AAA or many credit unions. While one’s yearly “dues” might make one a “member,” even earning a “vote,” in all honesty customers should know that they are just that–paying customers. At that time WorldCat was a walled resource for paying members. When they took the wall down it took away one of the incentives for membership, access to the catalog, and replaced it with another, presence in WorldCat as a promotional tool. As far as I can recall they always maintained that they owned the records. Should they back off, and sell membership as a way to link with other libraries and patrons, or should they forge ahead down the same path that record labels stumbled?