Library and Archives Canada Response to Library Community Concerns About Outsourcing of AMICUS National Catalogue

This is a follow-up to the March 11, 2015 Library Boy post entitled Canadian Library Association Concerns About Outsourcing of AMICUS National Catalogue to OCLC.

Library and Archives Canada (LAC)  has been negotiating with the OCLC international library cooperative about taking over AMICUS, Canada's national union catalogue. Many Canadian libraries use AMICUS to identify institutions from which to order materials via inter-library loan.

The Canadian Library Association (CLA) wrote earlier this year to LAC to express concerns about the change. These concerns include questions relating to:

• access to the new AMICUS for libraries that are not members of OCLC
• the openness of OCLC
• accessibility issues for libraries using older technologies
• the maintenance of Canadian authorities and subject headings going forward
• cross-references between English and French authorities and subject headings

Library and Archives has responded and that response has been published on the CLA website.