Whilst there is value to those libraries that already buy (or otherwise acquire) Library of Congress data and subscribe to various OCLC services in order to ease the flow of their bibliographic workflows, for many of them this value may not be readily apparent as the payments for these services simply disappear from some ring-fenced account every year as part of their ongoing operational budget. Whether the big pool of data upon which they draw is paid for by some other arm of their organisation or acquired Openly matters little to many of those actually putting the data to work in their catalogue today. That is not to say that they don't want open data, or that open data is not a better way to proceed. It simply recognises the reality that changing the financial model doesn't immediately impact in their world.
Casey's premise is that smaller institutions should be entitled to access bibliographic data - and software - previously beyond their means, and it is this that he sees as the important issue here. Good luck to him on that.
We have a vast quantity of high quality data. We're wasting it. Let's stop. Opening up access to the data allows existing stakeholders to do some interesting things. It also creates opportunities for whole new groups of beneficiaries to do things we haven't thought of yet....
Map data has been around for a very long time. Satellite imagery has been around for quite a long time. Even in countries like the US, where federally funded data were notionally free, third parties were heavily involved in adding value to the basic cartographic units. For the explosion in usage which we see today, it required a change in attitude and the involvement of Google et al. We went from essentially lousy but free or better but costly map data and ridiculously expensive satellite imagery to an explosion in the use of both, essentially free at the point of use.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 12/19/2006 12:26:00 PM.
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.
