Let them eat cake
The famous phrase “Let them eat cake” attributed to Marie-Antoinette came to mind when reading dchud’s One Big Library posting Open Data is not the point. The phrase that conjured up my though was this one:
LC bibliographic data is not exactly being held captive. Anybody can go buy a copy of this data now right from LC or from third parties today. The cost of this data is not in any way prohibitive for a medium- to large-scale institution that is already used to doing Big Deals in the six and seven figures.
So if you are not a medium- to large-scale institution that is already used to doing Big Deals in the six and seven figures.?
To me that seems a little bit of a barrier to entry for those outside that exclusive club. OK as pointed out you can freely download individual records from the Library of Congress’ Z39.30 and SRU servers – fine if thats all you want, but no good if you want to mine or analyze the data – or put it to use in wholly new ways outside the boring ILS.
The key benefits of opening up your data are usually unexpected, things like Liveplasma appearing on the back of Amazon’s data.
In a comment to his post he clarified his thoughts a little – this isn’t some landmark tipping point – people getting excited about this maybe being some kind of tipping point are framing the discussion myopically. The open distribution of the LC bib, and hopefully authority, records is not a tipping point.
The opening up of this data is the start of a process that could lead to a tipping point. Once the LC data is open and freely access it will become more and more untenable for others to restrict access to their equivalent silos of similar data. Once it becomes the norm to be able to access and aggregate data from many of the national libraries and similar institutions, we will then hit a tipping point. A tipping point which will bring a bibliographic backplane closer to realization.
Some could see the recent discussion as criticising the hard work of cataloguers over decades. Far from it. The Library of Congress, OCLC, Talis, and librarians around the world have delivered real and lasting value with their careful nurturing of a rich legacy of inter-connecting catalogue records. It’s just that with a bit of brave and lateral thinking (and action), changes in attitudes and technologies make it possible for us to truly realise the potential of all that data; by setting it free for ourselves and others to use and to build upon.
(Pan photo taken by hfb displayed in Flickr)
Technorati Tags: Talis, Cataloging, Open Data, Library of Congress
December 19th, 2006 at 3:27 pm
Heh, I’ve not been compared to Marie Antoinette before.
I can’t help but think that if you’re at a smaller institution with the capacity to mine or analyze or otherwise employ that whole dataset, you probably *do* have the necessary resources to afford a copy. Simply working with a dataset of that girth is no small project — as you well know — and I just can’t imagine “mine LC’s holdings” being a high priority strategic work item for many small institutions with more pressing needs.
I didn’t say anything about Z39.50 or SRU… I don’t see either of those as good enough and wouldn’t wish them on the rest of the world.
I did see the recorded discussion as glossing over not just the hard work of catalogers over decades, but essentially dismissing their *workflows*. Not that they can’t also be improved — and not that they’re not working on it, or couldn’t use help — but it’s the workflows of distributed, shared cataloging processes that are the key to ensuring that this data is any good to begin with. Divorcing access to the data from these processes completely is myopic, imho.
As for when we hit the tipping point, I’d argue that the day you and I became able to have this debate here was more of a tipping point.
Or, more to the point, that successful milestones in projects like VIAF are what will lead to “the norm to be able to access and aggregate data from many of the national libraries and similar institutions” more significantly than “just” open data access.
I don’t think open data is *bad*, just that it’s a part of a larger, older story, and not the whole story itself.
What you’re doing on this front is exciting and that’s why I pay such close attention to what you all say.
I’ll stop now… enjoy your holiday!