OCLC has been making some interesting moves lately. Last spring, Roy Tennant became a Senior Program Manager with the RLG Programs unit of OCLC Research and Programs. Andrew Pace is on his way to becoming OCLC's Executive Director for Networked Library Services. Then just a few days ago came the news that OCLC purchased EZproxy.

The EZproxy sale affects so many of us. Chris Zagar has been developing and supporting this product single-handedly from the start, and now it's used in over 2,400 institutions in 60 countries. I can see the benefits of putting a big organization behind the software. EZproxy has been evolving at a rapid pace in recent years in order to meet the needs of its customers in an increasingly complex world of vendor Web sites. Also, Chris has mentioned that vendors might be more cooperative with OCLC than with a single individual when authentication issues come up.

And the support! Those of us who, like myself, manage EZproxy in our libraries know that Chris has been exemplary in his tech support. "Exemplary" hardly describes Chris's responsiveness, individual attention, and relentless success in solving problems. In just my one small case, Chris wrote a couple of features into the software - and quickly - to meet a couple of my library's needs. Amazing. So it's a little nerve-wracking to imagine what's coming next, now that OCLC is taking over.

One of OCLC's plans is to create local instances of EZproxy on - you guessed it - WorldCat.org, aka Open WorldCat. This catalog has seen some really interesting developments. It's probably safe to say that its interface and features surpass what many of us offer in our libraries. And so, of course, there's Worldcat Local that's getting underway.

I could indulge in all sorts of speculations about what's happening with OCLC - how it's positioning itself, what its current interests are, what its intentions might be, and what might be the chances of success. For example, I can't help wondering if OCLC envisions that WorldCat Local will become the user interface of choice for most libraries, with EZproxy authentication built right in. Why not? Is it worthwhile for many hundreds of libraries to be customizing their own interfaces ad infinitem, especially when catalogs are not the holy grail they once were? Do these local efforts really pay off? Does Open Worldcat offer a promising alternative? These are legitimate questions.

And I wonder what OCLC might have in mind for social spaces, given its recent report Sharing, Privacy and Trust in Our Networked World. In the conclusion of this report, the authors state:

Those are some fighting words! I can't help wondering if they contain hints of things to come.

OCLC is active on many fronts. The products and services list on its site is a long one. There's NetLibrary, ILLiad, CONTENTdm, FirstSearch, a bunch of cataloging services, and QuestionPoint, to name a few. If OCLC does all this, and also becomes big in local catalog space, controls a primary authentication system for research materials, forges new ground in hosting/applying social space, and nabs some big library names in the process, well then: we might have a potential Google of the library world in the making.

If this is in any way on the mark, we need to be paying attention.