At 3:01 PM -0400 5/9/07, Jonathan Rochkind wrote:
But our field is not a healthy field if all research is being done by OCLC and other vendors. We need research from other places, we need research that produces public domain results, not proprietary trade secrets.
On May 9, 2007, at 3:27 PM, Eric Hellman wrote:
OCLC member libraries contribute resources to do exactly what you suggest, and to do it in a way that is sustainable for the long term. Worldcat is created and maintained by libraries and by librarians.
(quoting reversed) The thing that really bugs me here (enough that I fantasize about alternatives) is that OCLC member libraries: * Pay a (significant) membership fee * Pay library staff to update catalog records * Don't own the data in the catalog This is sustainable for only as long a term as libraries find this to be a good investment -- in other words, until someone comes along with a more compelling product at a better price (Talis... Librarything... I'm watching you). If nothing else, the "Open" in OpenWorldcat seems a tad disingenuous :/ Seriously, though -- we could implement a good frbrization algorithm in an open-source project (and, honestly, I can imagine myself paying for a truly exemplar frbrization service) but the closed nature of the data makes doing Interesting Things rather hard. -Nate
