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- Aug 2023
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hangingtogether.org hangingtogether.org
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Recently we recommended that OCLC declare OCLC Control Numbers (OCN) as dedicated to the public domain. We wanted to make it clear to the community of users that they could share and use the number for any purpose and without any restrictions. Making that declaration would be consistent with our application of an open license for our own releases of data for re-use and would end the needless elimination of the number from bibliographic datasets that are at the foundation of the library and community interactions. I’m pleased to say that this recommendation got unanimous support and my colleague Richard Wallis spoke about this declaration during his linked data session during the recent IFLA conference. The declaration now appears on the WCRR web page and from the page describing OCNs and their use.
OCLC Control Numbers are in the public domain
An updated link for the "page describing OCNs and their use" says:
The OCLC Control Number is a unique, sequentially assigned number associated with a record in WorldCat. The number is included in a WorldCat record when the record is created. The OCLC Control Number enables successful implementation and use of many OCLC products and services, including WorldCat Discovery and WorldCat Navigator. OCLC encourages the use of the OCLC Control Number in any appropriate library application, where it can be treated as if it is in the public domain.
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