The combined organization will retain the OCLC name, but the company plans to create an RLG-Programs unit within its Programs and Research Division that will continue RLG’s resource-sharing, digital preservation, archival description, and other programs and initiatives. It would remain a membership-based unit whose members would shape its agenda under the guidance of a dedicated program council.
Although specifics are not yet available, the two groups plan to migrate the RLG Union Catalog into the OCLC WorldCat database and combine their respective resource-sharing services. The organizations say they remain committed to maintaining services, pricing models, and service-level objectives throughout the transition.
“I think it will be very helpful,” Clifford A. Lynch, executive director of the Coalition for Networked Information, said in the May 4 Chronicle of Higher Education. “It really puts OCLC’s resources, and the scale of resources they command at this point, much more in the direct service of research libraries.”
RLG indicated in an FAQ that it will maintain its office in Mountain View, but decisions about its 80 staff members will be made “in the weeks leading up to the proposed transition.” RLG Marketing and Sales Director Karen Carbonnet told the Chronicle, “It’s difficult to say, but it seems likely that we will lose some of our employees as a result of this.”
RLG President James Michalko will become vice president of RLG-Programs development and will join the OCLC Strategic Leadership Team after the merger. The RLG-Programs unit will work alongside OCLC Research, with both units reporting to Lorcan Dempsey, OCLC vice president of research and chief strategist.
Posted May 5, 2006.