The Open Library movement needs your help!

I hope you’ll join me in signing the petition “Stop the OCLC powergrab!”. You can do so right now at:

watchdog.net/c/stop-oclc

OCLC, the not-for-profit that provides library services around the world, has gone too far. Originally, it was a library collaborative — one library could catalog a book, upload it to OCLC, and then other libraries could save time by reusing the catalog information. But as the price of such technology has fallen, its prices have risen. It charges membership fees, record retrieval fees, user support fees, and fees for all sorts of additional services. But now it’s gone a step too far — it wants to set the terms of use for every library record ever retrieved through OCLC, so that it can maintain its monopoly in the field. In a very real sense, they’re trying to steal our libraries. We have to make them stop — sign this petition.

For more information, see this wiki page: OCLC Policy Change.

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ok, so that was a canned message. but i did sign it. thanks to aaron swartz, with whom i disagree about a great many things, but am aligned for this particular cause.