Well put.
On a more basic level, what separates information about stuff from the
rest of what libraries do? What puts metadata outside of library
mission?
Face facts. You can march into a library, take out a book about
starting a lawn care business or creating a new invention, and you
don't have to pay anything for it—even if you end up making tons of
money. And while the rare librarian may grumble at the irony of poor
librarians helping rich patrons, everyone I know inside and outside of
libraries knows free information isn't a bug, it's the whole point of
the library.
Simply put, libraries are *in the business* of giving information
away. It's not some contested ideological dispute, or some technical
issue to be worked out between vendors. It's the definition of the
thing. It's what they're *for*.
If not, can someone please remove the "Free" from all those library names?
Tim
*Sure, you pay for photocopies. If the library faces marginal costs in
giving data away, they should charge for it. But they don't face those
costs. Bandwidth costs on a full LC data dump can't be more than a few
cents. That said, if a librarything didn't think it needed a Z39.50
connection for it's core work, and they want to charge for access to
one, I'd be quite happy with that.
On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 6:21 PM, B.G. Sloan <bgsloan2_at_yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Numerous people have mentioned how "A lot of work, and therefore expense went into creating all that data" and asked if we should be giving it away.
>
> Sure, it's expensive to create library data (I once watched four catalogers talk for more than an hour, debating which subject headings to assign to just one book). But these costs weren't underwritten by libraries with the idea of getting some sort of monetary return on investment. Libraries created these data, by and large, for the public good.
>
> So, libraries traditionally have spent a lot of money creating metadata for the public good with no expectaton of any financial ROI. Why should that change now? Why shouldn't we let others use our metadata freely to develop innovative and useful mashups? Isn't that also for the public good?
>
> It also may be in our enlightened self interest to let others freely use our metadata. Sometimes I think a key to keeping libraries relevant in the future lies in letting non-librarians take a crack at making our data more relevant to a broader audience.
>
> Bernie Sloan
>
>
>
>
> --- On Fri, 9/11/09, Jacobs, Jane W <Jane.W.Jacobs_at_QUEENSLIBRARY.ORG> wrote:
>
>
> From: Jacobs, Jane W <Jane.W.Jacobs_at_QUEENSLIBRARY.ORG>
> Subject: [NGC4LIB] Value of Catalog Data: should we give it away?
> To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
> Date: Friday, September 11, 2009, 1:01 PM
>
>
> 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.
>
>
>
>
>
--
Check out my library at http://www.librarything.com/profile/timspalding
Received on Fri Sep 11 2009 - 18:47:23 EDT