Re: OCLC recommends Open Data Commons Attribution License

From: Karen Coyle <lists_at_nyob>
Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2012 08:07:45 -0700
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Thanks, Graham. That is an excellent post.

The key points in that post are the ones regarding "database" vs. 
"data." This is a difficult distinction for bibliographic data where one 
can make use of individual records or individual bits of data. The 
"database" license makes more sense with things like census data where 
one will operate on a data set or a portion of a data set, but where 
transformation of individual bits of data doesn't make much sense. 
Rarely does one operate on an entire bibliographic database (e.g. 
drawing statistical measures like the ones in WorldCat identities); 
instead, the emphasis is on use of individual entries -- some data, but 
not the database.

At the same time, most people want to have some idea of where data comes 
from -- some way of gauging the "authoritativeness" of the data. This 
also requires carrying forward something that looks like attribution, 
and the W3C is calling it "provenance." It may be the case that the 
desire to get credit and the need to know your sources will be solved 
with a single addition to the linked data technology.

Note also that in some cases linked data carries attribution/provenance 
natively in its use of URIs, and that OCLC considers this sufficient 
attribution if no other technique is available. So this:

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/46969861

satisfies OCLC as a "BY"-type attribution.

kc



On 8/24/12 7:22 AM, Seaman, Graham wrote:
> For a differing opinion see http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/33768, especially the last paragraph. At least in the UK this opinion (a practical preference for CC0 over CC-BY) seems to be becoming the consensus.
>
> Graham Seaman
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Next generation catalogs for libraries [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of B.G. Sloan
> Sent: 23 August 2012 20:31
> To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
> Subject: [NGC4LIB] OCLC recommends Open Data Commons Attribution License
>
>  From Library Journal:
>   
> "OCLC is recommending that member institutions that would like to release their catalog data on the Web do so with the Open Data Commons Attribution License (ODC-BY)."
>   
> For more details, see: http://bit.ly/MP63Dc
>   
> Bernie Sloan

-- 
Karen Coyle
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet
Received on Fri Aug 24 2012 - 11:09:04 EDT