Jonathan:
"It's not that some of them are for-profit. We've always been happy to
share our metadata with, for instance, corporate libraries in for-profit
institutions too. Haven't we?"
Good point (also Kyle Banerjee a few posts back), but when we're dealing
with Google - their desire to be the "place to go" to get information
about virtually everything, and their corresponding ability to do it -
we have entered new territory I think.
I understand that you think Google's power is overrated Jonathan, and we
need not fear their monopolizing drive. However, given the law of
unforeseen consequences, I just don't share your confidence that - and
think that carefully considering the balance of power is not a bad idea.
But looks like it's all a moot point anyway, as OCLC has already given
them everything.
Regards,
Nathan Rinne
Media Cataloging Technician
Educational Service Center
11200 93rd Avenue North
Maple Grove MN. 55369
Email: rinnen_at_district279.org
-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
[mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Jonathan Rochkind
Sent: Monday, September 14, 2009 12:34 PM
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] An article to warm the hearts of cataloguers
James Weinheimer wrote:
>
> There is a big part of me that agrees with Nathan: that this is *our*
stuff
> that we shouldn't just be giving away. After all, it was made with the
> blood, sweat and tears of generations of experienced catalogers and is
> incredibly valuable. Simply giving it away seems crazy.
>
Haven't we ALWAYS simply given it away? Have cataloging departments
contributed shared cataloging to the universe because they expected
their institutions to be financially renumerated? The paltry 'credit'
sums you get from OCLC is not why we share our cataloging cooperatively,
in OCLC or other places, is it?
We share our cataloging cooperatively because we recognize that the sum
of all of our work is a public good, which serves all of our interests
to share.
So now, unlike 50 years ago, there are a lot of people other than
libraries interested in metadata. Many of them even produce tools that
our users use. What's the difference between sharing with other
libraries back when libraries were the only ones interested in
bibliographic metadata, and sharing with non-library entities now
interested in bibliographic metadata?
It's not that some of them are for-profit. We've always been happy to
share our metadata with, for instance, corporate libraries in for-profit
institutions too. Haven't we?
Jonathan
Received on Mon Sep 14 2009 - 13:47:01 EDT