Jonathan:
"But it would be a horrible mistake to let google somehow _monopolize_
our records. We should share them with _everyone_."
Given Google's influence, people and infrastructural resources, and
head-start (regarding scanning books, including out-of-print books
currently subject to copyright law***), how would the result not end up
being a de-facto monopoly (leaving everyone else in the dust?)
More and more I think such a thought may be reasonable: "Help me OCLC,
you're my only hope..." (to contrast with Tim Spalding's "OCLC as Death
Star" comparison: "I find your lack of faith disturbing") : )
Regards,
Nathan
*Listen to this program with Adam Smith from Google:
http://chronicle.com/media/audio/v55/i40/smith/
In it, he talks about "institutional subscriptions", or licenses to
Google Book Search (in the
context of academic libraries), for access (students and faculty) to
"all of the books [Google has] scanned"... He goes on to talk about the
books they've scanned from their library partners (out of copyright
books and out of print, but not necessarily out of copyright books)...
I am unclear as to whether he is only talking about those books and not
the most recently published (in print) books...
-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
[mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Jonathan Rochkind
Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 10:22 AM
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] OCLC Formally Withdraws WorldCat Policy
Weinheimer Jim wrote:
> If we keep everything to ourselves and expect that everyone will seek
> us out for our knowledge and our "superior data" I think we are sadly
> mistaken. But putting all of our eggs into the single "Google" basket
> wouldn't be wise, either. If we share our records--which I think is
> absolutely essential--it must be with everyone everywhere, so that
> *people* (not just corporations) can use our records to help them
> build their own tools so that they can succeed. If they succeed, we
> succeed.
Agree 100%. There is absolutely no reason not to share our records with
Google, if they're interested in them, and it's to our benefit if they
are! But it would be a horrible mistake to let google somehow
_monopolize_ our records. We should share them with _everyone_.
That's part of my concern with the current OCLC/WorldCat agreement.
Which isn't public, so we can't tell _exactly_ what's going on (problem
#1 right there). But from what I can tell, OCLC shared records with
Google in an 'exclusive' kind of way, according to some special (secret)
agreement -- and these were records that OCLC would like to _prevent_ us
from sharing with other people. And someone on this list recently
posted that they didn't even share as much metadata with Google as
Google would have liked!
I wrote a bit more about this here:
http://bibwild.wordpress.com/2008/05/23/gbsoclc/
Share with Google, of course -- but don't give Google exclusive access.
Share with _everyone_. Put our eggs in as many baskets as possible.
Jonathan
> After all, that's what have always done: we make records and create
tools so that the general public can find the information they need so
that they can then go on and succeed in whatever it is they are doing.
>
> Now.... do I really believe that "open" is the path to success? I
don't know if there is a way out in these difficult times, but I
honestly do not believe that "closed" is a solution to any of the
challenges facing us.
>
> Jim Weinheimer
>
Received on Tue Jul 14 2009 - 11:50:22 EDT