Criminal Law Library Blog
Source: LJXpress, October 30, 2007.
by Michael Rogers — Library Journal, 10/30/2007 6:52:00 AM
OCLC October 22 announced that it and the European OCLC PICA division have merged into a single “global organization” under the OCLC brand. OCLC said that by “bringing together all offices under one name and identity, libraries worldwide can benefit from OCLC membership, research, and an expanded portfolio around a comprehensive set of products and services.” The announcement immediately raised questions among other vendors regarding how OCLC can maintain its nonprofit status, since OCLC PICA is directly competing with for-profit vendors.
Cathy De Rosa, OCLC’s VP of the Americas and Global Marketing, however, confirmed for LJ that the operation indeed is “still a nonprofit,” but said she didn’t possess the legal background to provide specifics and would ask OCLC’s lawyers to provide that information to LJ. De Rosa said that the relationship with PICA goes back several years, so “the decision to work together to meet the mission of being a global organization is something that OCLC has been working on with its partners for many years; this is just a nice evolution to that. It’s not a new strategy, but really the continuation of strategy.”