It seems to me that the perversity of human psychology might be at work.
People seem to agree on the some points:
Data should be valuable:
1) A lot of work, and therefore expense went into creating all that
data.
2) Actual experience (examples cited earlier) shows that much of it IS
more accurate than what Google mash-ups are delivering with their
current algorithms.
3) On the other hand library systems as they currently stand, lack good
algorithms for effective user-friendly mash-ups.
4) We (Libraries and Librarians) are pretty strapped for cash, making
getting programmers to make better mash-ups is tough, even assuming you
have the vision to see what they might be.
5) Our circulation functions have us pretty well locked into Library
systems that aren't spending much on better mash-ups.
6) Hence, it would be nice if Google, et. al. WOULD use our data and
develop cool mash-ups that we could piggy-back off of to the mutual
benefit of both ourselves AND Google.
But the idea that Google (or anyone else) isn't using MARC records
because OCLC or any other library is not facilitating a wholesale data
dump seems highly unlikely to me. In the case of Google, if they
really want OCLC data, signing an agreement, or even paying a few
pennies or $s per record, would hardly stop them (It would probably
still be cheaper than paying their programmers to develop algorithms to
extract it from OCR scans.) and, anyway they could almost certainly grab
it first and ask questions later. The problem is more likely that an
organization like OCLC (which seems monolithic to us) is but a mere
speck in the Google Universe.
As for the rest of the non-bibliographic world, perhaps the data is
perceived as lacking in value BECAUSE it is largely free!
Before dismissing this as crazy talk, consider an interesting example
with prescription drugs which I read about in a recent issue of "The
Wellness Letter". For all that people complain about the price of drugs
and how they can be produced for much less than their sale price, it
turns out that, in a blind test, there is a strong "placebo effect" for
expensive drugs. In the example: treat two sets of people with the same
illness with the same amount of the same drug. Tell group 1 that the
drug costs X; tell group 2 that the drug costs 5X. Lo and behold, Group
2 reports that their treatment is far more effective!
I'm not much of a techie, and even I know you can grab a whole lotta
data for free with BookWhere of Surpass. For some, perhaps the lack of
easy data dumps, is more in the line of an excuse, handy once they found
that creating better algorithms to access to bibliographic data was just
a little harder than it looks, especially once the database gets large.
Elsewhere, I really think that it may be the availability NOT the
inaccessibility of MARC records that make some people ignore them or
question their value!
JJ
**Views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent those of
the Queens Library.**
Jane Jacobs
Asst. Coord., Catalog Division
Queens Borough Public Library
89-11 Merrick Blvd.
Jamaica, NY 11432
tel.: (718) 990-0804
e-mail: Jane.W.Jacobs_at_queenslibrary.org
FAX. (718) 990-8566
The information contained in this message may be privileged and confidential and protected from disclosure. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, or an employee or agent responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by replying to the message and deleting it from your computer.
Received on Fri Sep 11 2009 - 13:04:07 EDT