PS: The more I think about this, the more burned up I actually get.
Which maybe means I shouldn't post about it, but hey, I've never been
one for circumspection.
If OCLC is "us", then OCLC will gladly share with us (who are in fact
"them", right?) their research on workset grouping algorithms, and
precisely what workset grouping algorithm they are using in current
implementations of xISBN and other services, right? After all, if OCLC
is not a vendor, but just "us" collectively, why would one part of "us"
need to keep trade secrets from another part of "us"? Right?
While OCLC is at it, OCLC could throw in some more information on this
project, which has apparently been consigned to trade secret land since
it's sole (apparently mistaken) public outing:
http://www.code4lib.org/2006/smith
Our field needs publically shared research results and publically shared
solutions, to build a research community, to solve the vexing problems
we have in front of us in increasingly better ways, building off each
other. We need public domain solutions. "We" are not interested in
secret solutions. Vendors, however, need proprietary trade secrets, to
make sure they can solve the problems better than their competitors. If
OCLC is not a vendor but is instead "us", then why does OCLC treat it's
research findings as something that needs to be kept secret from the
actual _us_---everyone here who does not work for OCLC. That's "us".
Jonathan
Eric Hellman wrote:
Jonathan,
It's worth noting that OCLC *is* the "we" you are talking about.
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.
I'm the last to suggest that OCLC is the best possible instantiation
of libraries-working-together, but we do try.
Eric
At 3:01 PM -0400 5/9/07, Jonathan Rochkind wrote:
2) More interesting---OCLC's _initial_ work set grouping algorithm is
public. However, we know they've done a lot of additional work to
fine-tune the work set grouping algorithms.
(http://www.frbr.org/2007/01/16/midwinter-implementers). Some of these
algorithms probably take advantage of all the cool data OCLC has that we
don't, okay.
But how about we start working to re-create this algorithm? "Re-create"
isn't a good word, because we aren't going to violate any NDA's, we're
going to develop/invent our own algorithm, but this one is going to be
open source, not a trade secret like OCLC's.
So we develop an algorithm on our own, and we run that algorithm on our
own data. Our own local catalog. Union catalogs. Conglomerations of
different catalogs that we do ourselves. Even reproductions of the OCLC
corpus (or significant subsets thereof) that we manage to assemble in
ways that don't violate copyright or license agreements.
And then we've got our own workset grouping service. Which is really all
xISBN is. What is OCLC providing that is so special? Well, if what I've
just outlined above is so much work that we _can't_ pull it off, then I
guess we've got pay OCLC, and if we are willing to do so (rather than go
without the service), then I guess OCLC has correctly pegged their
market price.
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.
--
Eric Hellman, Director OCLC Openly
Informatics Division
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 2 Broad St., Suite 208
tel 1-973-509-7800 fax 1-734-468-6216 Bloomfield, NJ 07003
http://openly.oclc.org/1cate/ 1 Click Access To Everything
--
Jonathan Rochkind
Sr. Programmer/Analyst
The Sheridan Libraries
Johns Hopkins University
410.516.8886
rochkind (at) jhu.edu
