Dear OCLC,
I’m sure you do this for some very important reason, but spending $16 to express mail me a copy of a report that I didn’t ask for (though it does look quite interesting) seems wasteful. I go to the post office once a week and all express mail does is makes my postmistress agitated. While WorldCat is closer to being useful for me — showing one copy of Jane Eyre shown that is actually in my state before the ones one state over; the closest copy actually being about a quarter mile from here — I’d love it if you could apply this money to some sort of teeny-library scholarship fund so that we could benefit from WorldCat in Vermont instead of just hearing about how we can raise more money to pay you with.
Thanks.
Jessamyn
Here here.
Thanks! I will no longer be afraid to keep my disgruntled-with-OCLC thoughts to my quiet self.
I’m regularly disgruntled with OCLC, but I will say that some of the information in that report was interesting, particularly the fact that if someone views the library as “transformational” vs. “informational”, they’re more likely to vote for funding for it.
Why would/should anyone keep their disgruntled thoughts to themselves? Let us have it, we can take it. And maybe you can actually cause us to change our ways, since we certainly read everything we can find about what people are saying. Believe it or not, as a membership organization we really do want to do things that are efficient and effective for our members.
And although Jessamyn definitely has a point with her particular case, I think you would find that most people in the “press” (and bloggers are certainly of that sort in today’s world) getting something in a timely fashion (like when everyone else gets it) is important. So I would argue that at least some bloggers would appreciate the small amount of extra money spent in order to keep them on the cutting edge. I know I would.
Ah, crap – I typed a great witty reply but then didn’t notice the “span” box…
Basically, I didn’t get one :( I did download it but now will hold off on printing/binding it to see if I do get one. My library is getting ready for a levy election so I’m interested in what’s in this (it *does* look interesting). I also agree with your idea of using the money for scholarship (though I bet the shipping $$ was paid from the original grant anyway)
Cheers,