[in a weary voice] Do you know anything about an organisation called the OCLC and how they license the use of local library book information?
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[in a weary voice] Do you know anything about an organisation called the OCLC and how they license the use of local library book information?
Copyblogger theme design by Chris Pearson | Hosted by ENTANET
3 comments ↓
That sounds pretty awful - why would libraries (and indeed Local Authorities and the DCMS) play the OCLCs game?
Why would libraries play this game? Well, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. OCLC is essentially a good idea - libraries cooperating to act as a counter-weight to the large library service companies. However, I believe OCLC predates certain recent company rule innovations (asset locks) and data licensing innovations (Share-Alike and Fiduciary Licensing), so there’s nothing to stop them trying to privatise the assets (library data) that the libraries have given to OCLC and it was only a matter of time before someone tried.
I’m having a similar, uh, discussion with another organisation that has been given data by its members and is now apparently about to exploit them for the organisation’s private benefit, to the detriment of the community.
In time, hopefully, asset locks and more awareness of data licensing will eliminate these problems, but there’s going to be a lot more people getting burnt first.
Finally, a quick shout-out to the Open Library Environment as a possible emerging alternative to OCLC for practical services.
I’ll blog more about this on my work blog soon (linked from my website). Let me know if there’s a particular aspect you think I should cover.
[...] commenter on Tom Watson: Library data asks: “Why would libraries play this game?” Well, the road to hell is paved with good [...]
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