Abstract
As library materials are catalogued by public organisations and librarians are active promoters of the principles of open access, one would expect library data to be freely available to all. Yet this is not the case. Why then do so few libraries make their data available free of charge? This article reviews the diverging, often restrictive policies and the interests (commercial and strategic) at stake. It presents a panorama of the current situation, the actors and interests involved. It addresses the legal aspects and the obstacles and it shows how data produced by libraries can be made freely available to other knowledge organisations while retaining and developing the collective organisations and services built by library networks over the years. The aim of the ‘free the data movement’ is to share and reuse bibliographic data in a new ecosystem where all the actors are involved, both users and providers, not just librarians.
Highlights
The aim of the ‘free the data movement’ is to share and reuse bibliographic data in a new ecosystem where all the actors are involved, both users and providers, not just librarians
Topics involving bibliographic records have long been restricted to the circle of librarians and to an even smaller circle: cataloguers
The World-Wide Web Consortium (W3C) announced on 21 May 2010 the launch of a Library Linked Data Incubator Group ‘whose mission is to help increase global interoperability of library data on the Web, by bringing together people involved in semantic web activities — focusing on linked data — in the library community and beyond.’[3]. The W3C Members who sponsored the charter for this group are well known for their innovations: Helsinki University of Technology, DERI Galway, the Competence Centre for Interoperable Metadata (KIM), the Library of Congress, Los Alamos National Laboratory, MIMOS, OCLC, Talis, the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam, and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Summary
Topics involving bibliographic records have long been restricted to the circle of librarians and to an even smaller circle: cataloguers. Library data are back on the stage: At the Berlin[7] Conference in Paris (December 2009), metadata were placed on the same level as academic literature in a leap of the open access movement to library catalogues. OCLC has made metadata a subject of controversy with their abortive attempt at introducing a new policy for WorldCat records in October 2008. The new policy prompted an outcry from the library community around the world. Even the venerable Guardian dedicated its headline to metadata!1. Why this new craze for data produced by libraries? Why this new craze for data produced by libraries? What are the academic and economic issues? Who are the actors involved? What are the claims and the expected changes?
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