Oops.  Just reread the last bit of Cal's message more carefully.  That RLIN
has decreased postal costs of ILL.  He's probably right.  I don't know
about RLIN, but OCLC has a per use charge that has made it prohibitive for
libraries to make OCLC available to individual patrons.  That's truly
unfortunate, since OCLC's records provide a tremendous research
resource--although of course it's frustrating to know that various books
exist out there that we can't obtain for our own use.
In addition, though, OCLC provides access to a Name Authority, which
provides some information on names, pseudonyms, birth- and death dates.
Not many film people are included, except to the extent that film scripts,
biographies, etc., have been cataloged--and then it's still a question of
the depth of cataloging.  Name Authority works takes much time and only a
few libraries are eligible to provide such information.
Harriet
 
Dr Harriet Margolis
Department of Theatre & Film
Victoria University of Wellington
P.O.Box 600 Wellington, New Zealand.
Telephone 64-4 4715359,  Facsimile 64-4 4955090