Paul Miller, Open Sesame, Panlibus, Spring 2007. Scroll to p. 26. Excerpt:
A...recent concept, and one with particular relevance to the library community, is that of open data....
[T]here is a growing recognition that data accumulated as an individual interacts with Web resources is of great value - both to the site on which they find themselves, and to the user. Sites such as Amazon have traditionally done a remarkable job of squeezing value from data, with their recommendations and carefully targeted site personalisation. Although the user perceives benefit in this mining of ‘their’ data by Amazon, they have had little control over the uses to which it was put, and far less ability to make use of the data for their own purposes. They have effectively been unable, for example, to combine purchase histories from Amazon and Borders, or to integrate that purchase history with their borrowing record at the public library....
The realisation that data gathered as a result of user behaviour has value to the user (and should be available for them to reuse as they see fit) has continued to gain acceptance. Speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit in November 2006, Google CEO Eric Schmidt essentially stated that users of Google services should be able to take data collected whilst they use those services and give it to third parties. A user of Google’s search engine, for example, should be able to share their search history with Yahoo! or Microsoft. Further, he suggested that a company such as Google might actually increase use and loyalty… by making it easy for users to go elsewhere.
Similar principles can increasingly be seen to apply to other data collected by libraries....[E]xisting library data can be made far more valuable once it’s available for flexible use and reuse both inside and outside the library....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 1/25/2007 10:06:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
