yes Talis did.

Also why is it that only OCLC is left? Well the others have gone by the 
by,(because it isn't easy or cheap, and everyone thinks they can redesign 
the wheel as Duncan said) BUT there is another organization in the USA 
challenging OCLC, whether it will be successful, who knows. The BL did 
facilitate an awful lot in this field, even to the development of the MARC 
record (which my husband did the software for before I met him, or rather 
how I met him).

Fred Kilgore did come to the UK , even before my time, to do business with 
the UK via LASER, but the librarians wouldn't have it

f
Frances Hendrix
Martin House Farm, Hilltop Lane, Whittle le Woods, Chorley, Lancs PR6 7QR, 
UK
tel: 01257 274 833.  fax: 01257 266 488
email: [log in to unmask]
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mick Fortune" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, March 04, 2010 5:08 PM
Subject: Re: retrospective cataloguing


As someone with a memory almost as long as Frances and Bruce, didn't TALIS
inherit BLCMP?

Certainly both SWALCAP and BLCMP benefitted from BL generosity toward
charities in establishing their ventures at the time by supplying them with
MARC data from the BLAISE database (something they refused even to other BL
departments I recall).

But that was then and this is now. But I do agree with Bruce that acceptance
of world domination by a single supplier is not healthy for competition.
OCLC stopped being "not for profit" even longer ago than BLCMP became TALIS
:)

Mick

Mick Fortune
m. +44 (0)7786 625544         t.   +44 (0)1865 727411


> -----Original Message-----
> From: A general Library and Information Science list for news and
> discussion. [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bruce Royan
> Sent: 04 March 2010 4:52 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: retrospective cataloguing
>
> It's interesting to see SCOLCAP mentioned so many times over the last
> few
> hours, and after so long. That project is some 30 years old, and many
> lis-linkers may never have heard of it. As the former head of systems
> on
> that project, I can confirm that it was one of a number of pioneering
> collaborative library systems being set up in the late 70's, including
> SCOLCAP in Scotland, SWALCAP in Bristol, and BLCMP in Birmingham. In
> the
> long run, I guess, we are all dead, and by the end of the 80's all
> SCOLCAP's
> members had gone their separate ways, but in my memory that was more to
> do
> with the increasing availability of affordable stand-alone turnkey
> systems,
> than with any reluctance to share data.
>
> Duncan is absolutely right to point to the world dominance of OCLC in
> the
> shared cataloguing market, but I suspect that I am not alone in feeling
> that
> world domination of any market is not always AN UNALLOYED GOOD THING.
>
> I don't pretend to know the ins and outs of the RLUK proposal, but I do
> understand that the current cost of copy cataloguing is still an
> inhibitor
> to retroconversion, so I would have thought that a proposal to make 35
> million MARC records freely available to not-for-profit libraries,
> would
> have been generally welcomed, rather than condemned in such extreme
> terms.
>
>
> *************************************************
> Bruce Royan http://www.linkedin.com/in/bruceroyan
> 41 Greenhill Gardens, Edinburgh EH10 4BL
> +44 131 4473151         +44 77 1374 4731
> *************************************************
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: A general Library and Information Science list for news and
> discussion. [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Dunia
> Garcia-Ontiveros
> Sent: 03 March 2010 17:20
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: retrospective cataloguing
>
> Dear List members,
> If your library has a backlog of items awaiting cataloguing you may be
> interested to read the following:
> RLUK is taking part in discussions with the Joint Information Systems
> Committee to investigate options for making its cataloguing database
> more
> freely available with the aim of creating a larger set of holdings data
> describing research collections across the UK. This larger data would
> then
> be used to create new collection management tools, in collaboration
> with the
> JISC, which would enable librarians to interrogate and compare
> collections
> in order to prioritise items for digitisation, preservation or
> relegation.
> Since the bibliographical data that RLUK manages underpins Copac, this
> would
> also mean an ever-expanding resource discovery service for researchers
> and
> information professionals.
> The fundamental proposition is that those libraries that are prepared
> to
> underwrite putting their collections into Copac would gain access to
> the 35
> million MARC records in the RLUK database, for free. There would be a
> new,
> permissive licence that would allow such records to be freely
> circulated by
> all not-for-profit cultural and heritage institutions.
> The hope is that this freely available and freely distributable data
> would
> help such institutions substantially to reduce their cataloguing
> overheads
> and reduce the cost of retroconversion projects. The result of such
> activity
> would help to transform Copac into a truly national catalogue, imbibing
> collections from libraries, museums and archives, learned institutions
> and
> private specialist libraries that represent vast and rich materials for
> all
> researchers, wherever they are based.
> If you would like to be part of a campaign to renew the call for a
> national
> strategy to support retrospective cataloguing please join
> [log in to unmask], a news and discussion list on a national strategy
> for
> retrospective cataloguing and conversion for the library and
> information and
> archives sectors. This list is used by library and information services
> staff working on the retrospective cataloguing of collections in
> university
> libraries and other institutions across the UK.
> To join the list just visit
> https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=RETRO Dunia
> García-Ontiveros
> Head of Retrospective Cataloguing
> The London Library
> 14 St. James's Square
> London SW1Y 4LG
> Tel. 020 7766 4746
> Fax 020 7766 4766
> To reduce costs and increase efficiency we would like to use email as
> our
> primary method of communication with members. We ensure our records are
> secure and we will not pass on email addresses to any third party
> without
> members' express permission. Please let us know if you do not wish us
> to
> store your email address on our database and communicate with you in
> this
> way.=
> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
> Version: 9.0.733 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2721 - Release Date:
> 03/03/10 19:34:00