On 5/11/2010 1:20 PM, Jonathan Rochkind wrote: > But I think I know what Karen is saying, and I think I agree: If what > you are looking for is a free "bibliographic utility" suitable for > finding records to import into your catalog --- that is not the mission > or goal of the OL project, which I think is fine.
Which begs the question, what /is/ the mission and goal of the OL project? So far, there's been a lot of tap dancing around the question of whether OL can or will support MARC exports, MARC-XML exports, or Z39.5 access, but no one with presumptive authority to speak on behalf of Open Library has come forward to say "we can," "we can't," "we will," or "we won't." Reading between the lines of Ms. Coyle's posts, I conclude that the answer is "we can't, therefore we won't." Had the response been framed this way, it would have avoided a fair amount of discussion. Another acceptable response might have been, "we don't but we're working on it." Or, "we don't but we will if we can figure out how." Another completely acceptable response would have been simply "we won't." It may be because data has not been preserved or collected appropriately, it may be because development resources are scarce and allocated to other features, or it may be a simple unwillingness. The reason or rationale doesn't matter. I certainly don't expect the world to conform to my desires. I simply expect a straight-forward answer to a straight-forward question. So I ask again, who are the intended consumers of OpenLibrary catalog data?, what is the intended use for OpenLibrary catalog data?, and how well does the current interface address the documented intended use? _______________________________________________ Ol-tech mailing list [email protected] http://mail.archive.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ol-tech To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send email to [email protected]
