End of OA to OAIster as a separate database

Thomas Krichel has shared an email sent by OCLC to OAIster contributors.

... OCLC and the University of Michigan [former maintainer of OAIster] are working together to complete the transfer of OAIster harvesting operations to OCLC.

In October 2009, OCLC will add OAIster records to WorldCat.org. ...

OAIster users will have two ways to access the records you contribute to OAIster.

• WorldCat.org search results will include OAIster records. WorldCat.org is a publicly available Web site searchable at no charge. ... Each search will retrieve results from the WorldCat database along with OAIster and article-level content from [other sources]. Records from all sources are presented to users in integrated search results.
• Authenticated users of libraries that subscribe to the FirstSearch Base Package may search OAIster as a separate database through WorldCat.org, WorldCat Local and WorldCat Local "quick start." ...

Charles Bailey comments,

What appears to be lost in this strategy is free access to OAIster as a separate database after OCLC assumes full control of OAIster in 2010.

Also see comments by Krichel and Heather Morrison.

See also our past post on the OCLC-OAIster agreement, or all our past posts on OAIster and OCLC.