For the sake of completeness, here is the the corresponding joint
statement of the North Rhine-Westphalian Library Service Center, the
University and Public Library of Cologne, the University Library of the
University of Applied Science of Cologne, the Library of the Academy of
Media Arts Cologne and Library Centre of Rhineland-Palatinate:
-----
March 2010: Cologne-based libraries and the Library Centre of
Rhineland-Palatinate (LBZ) in cooperation with the North
Rhine-Westphalian Library Service Center (hbz) are the first German
libraries to adopt the idea of Open Access for bibliographic data by
publishing their catalog data for free public use. The University and
Public Library of Cologne (USB), the Library of the Academy of Media
Arts Cologne, the University Library of the University of Applied
Science of Cologne and the LBZ are taking the lead by releasing their
data. The Public Library of Cologne has announced to follow shortly. The
release of bibliographic data forms a basis for linking that data with
data from other domains in the Semantic Web.
Libraries have been involved with the Open Access movement for a long
time. The objective of this movement is to provide free access to
knowledge to everybody via the internet. Until now, only few libraries
have done so with their own data. Rolf Thiele, deputy director of the
USB Cologne, states: "Libraries appreciate the Open Access movement
because they themselves feel obliged to provide access to knowledge
without barriers. Providing this kind of access for bibliographic data,
thus applying the idea of Open Access to their own products, has been
disregarded until now. Up to this point, it was not possible to download
library catalogues as a whole. This will now be possible. We are taking
a first step towards a worldwide visibility of library holdings on the
internet." The library of the European Organization for Nuclear Research
(CERN) has already published its data under a public domain license in
January.
== Public data is placed in the public domain ==
The publication of the data enables anybody to download, modify and use
it for any purpose. "In times in which publishers and some library
organisations see data primarily as a source of capital, it is important
to stick up for the traditional duty of libraries and librarians.
Libraries have always strived to make large amounts of knowledge
accessible to as many people as possible, with the lowest restrictions
possible," said Silke Schomburg, deputy director of the hbz.
"Furthermore libraries are funded by the public. And what is publicly
financed should be made available to the public without restrictions,"
she continued.
Cooperation and data exchangie between libraries have been firmly
established in the library world for more than 100 years. Freely
supplying bibliographic data should not only further enhance cooperation
among libraries but enable subsequent use by non-library institutions.
"In the course of the internet's development it became clear that many
services can be greatly enhanced by catalog data. The German Wikipedia
for example has been enriched with German National Library data for a
long time. Such enrichment is often hindered and constricted by the
data's half open character," Schomburg notes.
== Data for the Semantic Web ==
The North Rhine-Westphalian Library Service Center has recently begun
evaluating the possibilities to transform data from library catalogs in
such a way that it can become a part of the emerging Semantic Web. The
liberalization of bibliographic data provides the legal background to
perform this transformation in a cooperative, open, and transparent way.
Currently there are discussions with other member libraries of the hbz
library network to publish their data. Moreover, "Open Data" and
"Semantic Web" are topics that are gaining perception in the
international library world.
Further information and links to the published datasets are available at
http://www.hbz-nrw.de/projekte/linked_open_data.
-----
http://www.hbz-nrw.de/dokumentencenter/presse/pm/datenfreigabe_engl
All the best,
Felix
Am Montag, den 15.03.2010, 06:26 -0700 schrieb Laval Hunsucker:
> Particularly relevant i.a. to the recent continuing
> discussions on this list : the blog-posting late
> yesterday evening by Jakob Voß in Göttingen --
>
> http://jakoblog.de/2010/03/14/endlich-freie-bibliografische-daten-aus-bibliotheken/
>
> ( with thanks to Jürgen Fenn for his "Meldung des
> Tages" early this morning ( our time ) on the
> discussion-list Inetbib ).
>
>
> - Laval Hunsucker
> Breukelen, Nederland
--
Felix Ostrowski
Gruppe Publikationssysteme
hbz - Hochschulbibliothekszentrum NRW
Postfach 270451
50510 Köln
Tel.: (+49) (0) 221 400 75-124
Fax: (+49) (0) 221 400 75-230
e-mail: ostrowski_at_hbz-nrw.de
www.hbz-nrw.de
Besuchen Sie das hbz auf dem 4. Leipziger Kongress für Information und Bibliothek an Stand +11 auf Ebene 1!
Received on Mon Mar 15 2010 - 10:00:12 EDT