Regional Library Networks and OCLC: From Collaboration and Interdependence to Conflict and Divorce

Abstract

After decades of successful, if not always smooth, working relationships with regional library networks in the United States, Online Computer Library Center (OCLC), Inc., with approval of amended articles of incorporation in 2008, it implemented significant changes in how it would price its products and services and how it would govern itself. These changes proved to have profound impact on the networks, precipitating the merger of many and the dissolution of some. This chapter describes the results of many interviews with past and present leaders of OCLC and the regional networks, both existing and defunct, and other knowledgeable individuals. The contrasting opinions on how the changes came about and their consequences offer a perspective on the evolution and then decline of some of the powerful consortial relationships of the last four decades.

Citation

Scepanski, J.M. and Wells, H.L. (2013), "Regional Library Networks and OCLC: From Collaboration and Interdependence to Conflict and Divorce", Woodsworth, A. and Penniman, W.D. (Ed.) Mergers and Alliances: The Wider View (Advances in Librarianship, Vol. 36), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 85-106. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0065-2830(2013)0000036007