Entries from November 2008 ↓

There are no changes in my top 7, but I did move Southern Cal above Texas Tech into 8th. I did this for two reasons, one Tech didn’t look so hot this week and with Oregon State’s lose to Oregon, it looks like Southern Cal will win the Pac-10 as long as they don’t mess up against UCLA next week. The other change was Missouri dropping out of top 10 after their lose to Kansas. I probably would have moved Georgia into my top 10, but they also lost so I decided to add the Big East champion, Cincinnati. Cincinnati had a great regular season with the only loses to Oklahoma and Connecticut.

1. Alabama (12-0)
2. Utah (12-0)
3. Boise State (12-0)
4. Ball State (12-0)
5. Texas (11-1)
6. Oklahoma (11-1)
7. Florida (11-1)
8. Southern Cal (10-1)
9. Texas Tech (11-1)
10. Cincinnati (10-2)

Jonathan Rochkind has an interesting post on his blog about “OCLC, and what we lose without openness (a True Story).” In his post, he talks about how if OCLC was more open, with both its data and its software, that we would see greater innovation in the area of using bibliographic records. I think this is no doubt true for OCLC, but OCLC isn’t unique in this. I think we would see greater innovation in, say the Aleph integrated library system, if Ex Libris opened the code.

The question Jonathan contemplates is how can a more open OCLC survive in this open environment. If competitors arise from this open environment, what happens to OCLC if this competition seriously cuts into there revenues to such an extent that OCLC folds. While I don’t think this would be the necessary, or even likely end of OCLC, I think it is a fair question to ask. Johnathon uses the metaphor of the Goose and the Golden Egg, except he changes it a little. In his open environment, we have innovative golden eggs all over the place. In the closed environment, all of the golden eggs are in one basket. As long as we don’t drop the basket, we are OK – maybe not as innovative as can be, but some what safe. I think this is a really useful analogy to Open Movements.

Keeping our golden eggs in one basket is safe until someone comes by and tries to take them or a hard wind blows and knocks us over. They only have to deal with taking down one enemy. Whereas conquering many people to get all the eggs is much harder. The problem with this day-and -age is that libraries (and OCLC) are not in their own protected world. There are storms and competition from the outside from the likes of Google and Amazon. They are looking for our eggs, or at least they will knock us out of the way to get to wherever it is they are going. If our eggs are all in once place, they make not only an easier target, but a more lucrative one. Without innovation, we will ultimate be left with an empty basket.

Now I am not arguing that OCLC has to go all open, but they need to make innovation outside of OCLC as easy as possible, and the more open they are, the more open to innovation they will be. While OCLC has opened up some areas with their OCLC Grid Services, I would like to see more of that and less barriers around the data. Libraries, especially, should not have to jump through any hoops, even big wide open ones, to innovate. While, as Jonathan points out, OCLC has been doing many wonderful and innovative things, they are but one organization, and they do not have unlimited funds so they need to prioritize. However it is a given that their priorities can not possibly be exactly the same as all of the diverse member libraries. The membership is just too diverse and too large for that to be possible.

With Texas Tech losing big to Oklahoma, there is a shake up in my top 10. With three high quality one-loss teams out of the Big 12 South, the biggest difficult for me was picking which order to put them in. Head-to-head doesn’t work because they all beat each other. I was looking at home v. away which would favor Texas (winning on a neutral field and losing on the road), but that is not really telling. I know a lot of national pole voters like the what-have-you-done-lately meth0d which would favor Oklahoma however I look at the whole season. I tried to decide based on who looked best, but that didn’t get me far. However, in the end I decided to eliminate Texas Tech from the #1 spot in the Big 12 South based on their lopsided loss. This left me taking Texas or Oklahoma for the #1 spot. For this I went head-to-head and put Texas in the higher spot of the three.

The other change was Utah knocking BYU out of the top 10. While it was a tough choice between Cincinnati, Georgia, Missouri, and Penn State, I decided to go with the Tigers of Missouri to replace BYU.

1. Alabama (11-0)
2. Utah (12-0)
3. Boise State (11-0)
4. Ball State (11-0)
5. Texas (10-1)
6. Oklahoma (10-1)
7. Florida (10-1)
8. Texas Tech (10-1)
9. Southern Cal (9-1)
10. Missouri (9-2)

I’ve been away at  a conference so I am a little slow about getting my college football top 10 after the November 15 games. No changes this week as no one in the top 10 lost this past week.

1. Texas Tech (10-0)
2. Alabama (11-0)
3. Utah (11-0)
4. Boise State (10-0)
5. Ball State (10-0)
6. Texas (10-1)
7. Oklahoma (9-1)
8. Florida (9-1)
9. Southern Cal (9-1)
10. BYU (10-1)

Richard Wallis of Talis produced a podcast with Vice President WorldCat and Metadata Services, Karen Calhoun and Senior Programme Officer, Roy Tennant about the new WorldCat Record Use Policy. The podcast is about an hour long and Richard asks some of his own questions as well as some sent in by others. Overall there wasn’t a lot of new stuff about policy specifics for people that have been following the controversy. However both Karen and Roy provided additional information about what OCLC’s thought process was in creating the new policy. For that reason I’d say even if you have been following the issue, if you have a chance to listen to the podcast, it is probably worth your time. If you haven’t been following it closely, I think it can get you up to speed, at least from OCLC’s perspective on what some of the issues are.

One of the key things that Karen and Roy repeated a few times during the podcast (and OCLC people have mentioned previously in other venues) is that the goal with this policy is to drive traffic to libraries museums and archives. They also have repeated that they hope it will make it easier for libraries, museums, and archives to use their data. It is not that I am not hearing them on this second point, but I still do not see how this “tiger’s role (territorial and instinctive)” approach accomplishes this.

I am guessing Karen and Roy would say that this is accomplished via the oft mentioned Proposal for Use and Transfer of WorldCat Records form where you can ask for permission to use WorldCat records. I think that answer would be a bit of a stretch. I’d rather have the rights to use records explicit in the policy instead of having to ask for permission. While having OCLC having a method to responding to requests is no doubt an improvement, the existence of a form by itself doesn’t do anything. It will be more of an issue as to what happens when a proposal is submitted. To this end, OCLC has been consistent saying that the intent of the form was not to be restrictive and they want to approve as many of these requests as they can. During the podcast Karen said that “Our hope is that we will be approving these things left and right.” I hope this ends up to be true, however, I believe the need to submit a proposal will be a hindrance to innovation. If someone has an idea that needs to be hashed out and they don’t know how OCLC will respond once they get a clearer idea, they may just drop it altogether. While I am willing to take Roy, Karen, and others from OCLC at their word, I am still not real comfortable with this approach. I’d rather see something much more open from the beginning. Despite my uncomfortableness, I am hopeful that OCLC will approve these requests “left and right.”

Richard asked a series of questions about how copyright-able the WorldCat database is. As many of you know the courts have found that a database of facts is not copyright-able in the USA. Karen mentioned that she was not a copyright expert but she thought the copyright was based on the compilation and that OCLC has invested a large effort into maintaining the database. However, the amount of sweat used during the creation and maintenance of a database is not by itself suffice for copyright. Karen did say that she was not a copyright expert and offered to respond to this on her Metalogue blog after asking OCLC legal council about the copyright status of WorldCat as a whole and individual records. I look forward to there are response. If it is true that the copyright is based on the compilation, then any individual record or group of records would not be copyrighted.*

One of my complaints about the policy has been the ability to import records into commercial search and discover tools such as Endeca or Primo. Richard asked about this using Aquabrowser as an example. Karen said that she felt this was “perfectly acceptable” and that “the policy is silent [...] it has no conditions or restrictions whatsoever.” Roy added that it would not make a difference if the service was hosted by a commercial vendor. I am glad that Karen and Roy think this would not be an issue and that it is “perfectly acceptable.” however the policy clearly states:

An OCLC Member or a Non-OCLC Member may Transfer WorldCat Records of its own Holdings to a Third-Party who has entered into a separate agreement with OCLC authorizing the Third-Party’s receipt of the WorldCat Records (D1b)

B14 says that

“Transfer” means conveyance to another by exchange, merger, sharing, gift, providing the capability to download or otherwise electronically copy or any other means.

I don’t see how OCLC can say the policy “ has no conditions or restrictions whatsoever. Unless there in an exception I don’t see in this policy, the wording doesn’t allow this without some sort of agreement between the third party with OCLC. As Karen has mentioned in her blog post, this is a legal document. I am not comfortable with just hearing from them that this is allowed – I want to see it in the policy. Karen may believe that it is “perfectly acceptable” but maybe her successor will not.

Related to this are issues with sharing records to individual library patrons that use tools such as Zotero, RefWorks and Endnote. As I mentioned before, they have agreed to remove “any individual” from the definition of a third party which is a huge improvement. The current version of the policy on their Web site has removed this but they have not added any specific wording in the policy allowing libraries to share the data with individuals. While it is true that they say this is allowed in the FAQ, the FAQ is not the legal document. The policy is. Maybe I am being nit-picky about this, but if OCLC wants to have a new legal policy governing the use of WorldCat records they should make the policy more explicit about this.

A number of librarians have been concerned about what this new policy does to their ability to use Z39.50 servers. When asked about this in the Podcast, Karen said that they are “not necessarily asking libraries to police their Z39.50 connections,. However they are encouraging libraries to alert us of [infringing] usages.” As with the use of records for individual use this is not explicit in the policy although it is addressed in the FAQ.

Many libraries have shared, or would like to share, their records with the Open Library. When Richard asked about this Karen said that they would like to “have to an agreement with OpenLibrary that helps drive searches to libraries” but it sounded like they were concerned about some of the statements from Open Library. Based on what Karen said in the podcast, I think there is little chance that if someone filled out request to send their records to Open Library it would be approved course, I am not sure the Open Library would take them anyway with the “viral” license attached to the records.

One of the things discussed in the blogosphere was if OCLC should break apart and become partly cooperative and partly commercial. Karen said that OCLC has no plans to move that way to which Richard pointed out that OCLC owns commercial companies in Europe and elsewhere. Karen said she was inadequately prepared to answer this question (which makes sense, after all she is not an international trade lawyer after all). It is an important one to consider however. In the USA, we often here that OCLC is a cooperative, but it really isn’t that way for all libraries around the world. As with the copyright issue, Karen offers to try to find out more information about this status and post it to her blog.

Roy’s closing thoughts were

I just want to make it clear that really we are trying to make it easier for our member institutions to use their data in interesting new ways to become more effective, more efficient. I think we’re backing that up with real services. We are exposing their data to them in useful ways that can be processed by software so I think this is a good direction for us and I think the new policy is a part of that direction.

to which Karen added that they

tried to make the policy as open as possible.

Well, obviously they didn’t make it as open as possible or they would have done just that; made it truly open. If that was really their goal, we would have a much more open policy. However I do understand the concerns of OCLC. I just don’t think this approach is in the long term interest of OCLC members and other libraries. Metadata hoarding is not going to be a viable long term business model for libraries.

I believe Roy and other OCLC employees when they say that want to make it possible for libraries to “use their data in interesting new ways to become more effective, more efficient.” Roy and the other people I know who work for OCLC really do care about libraries. I just don’t see how the policy does this. While the current people speaking on behalf of OCLC may want to approve as many WorldCat record use requests as possible, they may not always be the ones making the decisions. This is why I want as much of these rights enumerated in the policy, instead of hiding behind a request form that “OCLC reserves the right to accept or reject any proposed Use or Transfer of WorldCat Records which, in OCLC’s reasonably exercised discretion, does not conform to the Policy for Use and Transfer of WorldCat Records.”

* At least OCLC would not be the copyright holder except possibly for the records that they have created. Of course, this all depends if a MARC record is copyright-able – something that is up for debate.

As Rob Styles mentions in his recent post about the OCLC Worldcat policy, Ryan Eby is keeping track of news and happenings with the OCLC Record Usage Policy on the Code4Lib Wiki.

The OCLC Worldcat record policy change has made it to Inside Higher Ed and Slashdot. The Inside Higher Ed article, Maelstrom Over Metadata, doesn’t offer a lot of new information for those that have been following the “Maelstrom.” However it does give a somewhat neutral, if overly brief, overview of the situation. It also have some interesting quotes from Anne R. Kenney, the Carl A. Kroch University Librarian at Cornell University, defending OCLC and from Terry Reese, the Gray Chair for Innovative Library Services at Oregon State University Library, who has been critical of the new policy.

The Slashdot post about OCLC predictability received a bunch of off-topic and uninformed comments. I did read through them all last night (and just checked for new ones) and didn’t really find anything new or all that insightful. However, I did get a laugh out of a comment from “Anonymous Coward” who said:

Librarians are a dangerous bunch. If you try to mess with information, they will mess with you. You think geeks overuse the mantra “information wants to be free”? Librarians live it. Oh sure they seem mild-mannered, but just try and put limits on the information they possess and see what happens. Or better yet don’t, because if you’re lucky what will happen is you’ll be dead. If you’re not lucky, you’ll live through it.

to which, galactic-ac responded:

As another librarian I can confirm that we would start with a lengthy meeting, but that would be followed by prolific blogging and tweeting at other librarians. And /that/ would be followed by much mutual congratulatory back-patting for being soooo 2.0.

Aaron Scwartz of the Open Library has a provocative post on what he considers The OCLC Powergrab. He brings in a number of thoughs about how OCLC has lost its original mission and how “OCLC’s control passed from librarians and academics to business people (its senior executive comes from consulting firm Deloitte & Touche).” I’m not sure that I 100% agree with all of his thoughts on this issue, but I think they are important to consider as there is a lot of truth in what he writes. He has also started a petition to get OCLC to change its new WorldCat policy that you may wish to sign if you disagree with this upcoming new policy.

Molly Kleinman has a good article about “The beauty of “Some Rights Reserved”: Introducing Creative Commons to librarians, faculty, and students” in the November 2008 issue of C&RL News that comes with an associated Podcast . If you are familiar with Creative Commons licenses you might not learn a lot new about the licenses themselves, however what was new to me was the was learning about the University of Michigan is going about advocating/educating about Creative Commons and how faculty and students can take advantage of it and why they might want to release their own work under such a license. They do this a variety of ways including one on one sessions, but the article focused on a workshop they offer. Molly also posted a series of CC HowTos on her blog and had a introduction to copyright for instruction librarians published in LOEX Quarterly recently.

Rob Styles has an interesting post on OCLC, Record Usage, Copyright, Contracts and the Law. While Rob is not a lawyer, he did ask James Grimmelmann, an Associate Professor at New York Law School, for his thoughts on the matter. Basically the conclusion that Rob comes up with is that the only way that OCLC can enforce any policy governing the use of WorldCat records is by contract law. He believes this because WorldCat, which is a database, is not copyright-able under U.S. law. Thus, libraries and “third parties” would have to agree to a contract in order for this policy to be enforceable. If they don’t agree, but have otherwise legally obtained the records, reverts to the default status, which is that thy have no legal protection. As Grimmelmann says, “OCLC has no contractual control over the records they get.” Rob explains this in much greater detail in his post. I think everyone that is involved with decisions (or cares about) in regards to what their library does with their bibliographic records.