On Mon, 7 Sep 2009 08:56:15 -0700, Karen Coyle <lists_at_KCOYLE.NET> wrote:
>In other words, we have shot ourselves in the foot by not allowing
>Google to make use of the metadata created by libraries.
That seems to sum it up pretty well. It's going to take some time for people
and organizations to come to grips with the new realities, but here is a
great example of the problems of looking at the situation in the old way,
i.e. "If you want my product (in this case, library metadata) you will have
to pay me for it." This made a certain amount of sense in the pre-web
environment.
Today though, there is almost always a "free" alternative and "free" is
difficult to compete with. In this case, Google is obviously going with
metadata from other sites, and although this metadata may not be as good, at
least it's being used while ours can be ignored. And now with Web2.0
possibilities, they could (and probably will if they are smart, and Google
is smart) they could open up the records for edits by the general populace.
From the examples of Open library and LibraryThing, there is interest among
the people to do this. Would that solve the problem? Certainly not to my own
satisfaction, but I am a specialist. There is a chance that it might be very
welcome to the non-specialists who have had lots of problems with
traditional catalog records in any case.
Again, if libraries are to share their records, they must do it with
*everyone equally* and not just with a select few.
Jim Weinheimer
Received on Tue Sep 08 2009 - 03:29:24 EDT