At MLC’s annual meeting on October 3, I talked about the changes that our OCLC members will experience with the new service model that OCLC announced a couple weeks ago. If you work in a library that uses any OCLC service, the new service model will have an impact on you, and it will affect the range of services you’ve come to expect from MLC.

As the press release said, OCLC has adopted a new service model for support, training, marketing, and billing. The directors of the Regional Networks were informed of the changes at a meeting with OCLC staff on September 9. We were given documents that outline three areas for MLC and the other Regional Networks to continue working with OCLC: billing, marketing, and training/implementation. We were not given any options for other services that we currently provide, such as phone and email support for cataloging and ILL.

There are some details for OCLC to work out in the new program so we are not sure of the complete impact on you. However, we do know that beginning July 1, 2009 you will not contact MLC with your cataloging and ILL support questions, and we know that you will no longer contract with MLC for your OCLC cataloging and ILL services. Instead you will have a direct arrangement with OCLC.

Within the next couple of weeks, we need to tell OCLC whether we are interested in being their billing, marketing, and training agent. By early 2009, we will have an agreement with OCLC about how we will work together under the new model.

We want you to be fully informed about the extent of the changes that will come with the new program. We will use our normal communication channels – this blog, our website, the Communique blog, and News@MLC – to send regular updates. As always, we welcome your comments and questions.