Yes and no. Companies like Ingram and Bowker used—and presumably
use—LC and other library data extensively. I suspect they also used
OCLC. But Amazon largely went its own way, and so has Google now.
More generally, libraries *used* to be the main source of information
about books—over the telephone, in person, etc. Now, when attention
has shifted to the web for this sort of information, libraries are
nowhere to be seen. When the web came along and people outside of
libraries and the big publishers started wanting bibliographic data,
libraries had a choice: embrace the web or pretend it didn't exist.
Libraries had every incentive to be libraries *to the web* as well—to
become the most important source of online information as they were of
offline.
That battle was lost. Libraries refused to give up their data or make
a serious play for the web's attention. Libraries could have banded
together and put themselves at the heart of books online—data and web
generally. They did not. You almost never find a library in the first
20 results on Google when you're searching for a book. And the most
important library site—WorldCat.org—gets fewer monthly visitors than
the let's-pretend-our-dogs-are-people site, Dogster.com.
The Google API is another sign that libraries are increasingly
irrelevant to what used to be thought a core strength, telling people
about books.
Tim
On Sun, Sep 28, 2008 at 3:39 PM, B.G. Sloan <bgsloan2_at_yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Tim Spalding said:
>
> "As I stressed, library metadata was once dominant, but is now used exclusively within libraries."
>
> I'm confused...wasn't library data almost always used exclusively within libraries?
>
> Bernie Sloan
> Sora Associates
> Bloomington, IN
>
> --- On Sun, 9/28/08, Tim Spalding <tim_at_LIBRARYTHING.COM> wrote:
>
> From: Tim Spalding <tim_at_LIBRARYTHING.COM>
> Subject: [NGC4LIB] Google Booksearch Data API: Another blow to library metadata
> To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
> Date: Sunday, September 28, 2008, 1:56 PM
>
> Recent discussions featured Alexander and I arguing—nearly alone—that
> closed attitudes and librarian standards, particularly metadata
> standards, were hurting libraries. As I stressed, library metadata was
> once dominant, but is now used exclusively within libraries. The
> ground was ceded to Amazon with its openness, commonsense format and
> REST interface. Library data was marginal outside of libraries and
> losing ground.
>
> Libraries just lost more ground, as Google has released its own
> book-data API. The Google API has what Amazon lacks--coverage of
> out-of-print books. It's blindingly fast and it return results in
> sensible XML, including a bit of Dublin Core. To people who need
> basic, high-quality, fast book data, it is a boon. It even has covers.
> And you don't have those nasty rules about funneling sales to Amazon.
>
> Google Booksearch Data API
> http://code.google.com/apis/books/docs/gdata/developers_guide_protocol.html
>
> I've got a simple tester up at LibraryThing, while we figure what to do
> with it:
> http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?topic=46336
>
> To those of us who promoted the use of library data outside of
> libraries, it is another setback.
>
> Indeed, I can tell you that I was helping one of the major swap site
> get on it feet with respect to MARC, so they could have more reach and
> be Amazon-proof; they are now dropping the MARC effort in favor of
> Google.
>
> The irony here is that some of the data is actually coming from OCLC.
> This is apparently why it's thin—so you can't use it to replace them.
> But Google doesn't need OCLC that much. It's getting a lot from Google
> Book Search partner libraries, as many of the identifiers attest. And
> they're now getting feeds from all the major publishes. You'll notice
> that "subjects" are a random mix of LCSH and BISAC. Lovely.
>
> So, it's not just Amazon, but now Google serving up high-quality book
> metadata to the world—data that libraries refuse to provide, except to
> each other and in antiquated formats. Another step down the long path
> to irrelevance.
>
> Tim
>
> --
> Check out my library at http://www.librarything.com/profile/timspalding
>
>
>
>
>
--
Check out my library at http://www.librarything.com/profile/timspalding
Received on Sun Sep 28 2008 - 14:18:11 EDT