Jonathan Gray wrote: > Hi all, > > Below is a (rather long) draft response to the LoC draft report: > > http://www.okfn.org/wiki/FutureOfBibliographicControl > > Any comments would be much appreciated!
Main comments: * I generally agree with Aaron that you want something short and to the point as your main part. * I'd therefore strongly suggest refactoring the intro to *be* the response with any other stuff as 'Appendices'. * I think it would be good if we could merge this response with Aaron's to get something common and simple that everyone can sign onto (though this is not essential). I've had a first stab at doing this below (and I've also uploaded this to the wiki). * This way one can just sent round the succinct response for signon and leave specifics for an appendices (perhaps just submitted by the OKF and whoever else is happy with them). * Even in the appendix I'm not sure one really wants to include the line by line critique of their report -- is this the usual approach? I thought responses were generally more broadbrush than this though I might be wrong. * One final style point: this is a response and not an academic document so in general I think one wants to keep the 'footnote' stuff to a bare minimum (basically omit unless it something particularly controversial or especially in need of support). > (Its also inline below.) > > Regards, > > Jonathan > > > = Open bibliographic data? - comments on draft report by the Working > Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control at the Library of Congress = > > 14th December 2007 > > > '''Rufus Pollock, The Open Knowledge Foundation''' [[BR]] > '''Jonathan Gray, The Open Knowledge Foundation''' [[BR]] > '''Peter Suber, The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources > Coalition''' [[BR]] > '''Aaron Schwartz, The Open Library'''[[BR]] > > > == Introduction == > > This document is a response to the call for comments on a draft released > by the Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control on 30th > November 2007 [1]. [snip] Ok from here on rather than doing a line by line critique I've attempted to do a merge of the two existing drafts (yours and Aaron's): NEW DRAFT ========= The draft report of the Library of Congress's Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control[1] features many interesting suggestions. In particular we wholeheartedly endorse the vision of a bibliographic ecosystem which is "collaborative, decentralized, international in scope and web-based". However, we are concerned that the report lacks any discussion of a key component for any future of bibliographic data: open licensing and access. [1]: http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/ Over the past few years, open licensing has facilitated the explosive growth of a 'knowledge commons'. To give a few prominent examples: Open Access journals, Open Educational Resources and Open Data in scientific research have all been enabled by licenses which permit material to be freely re-used and re-distributed.[3] [3] A definition or an open license and a list of open licenses that could be used can be found at <http://www.opendefinition.org/>. > Comment: this note could be omitted but I think it worth putting in the footnote here to make sure it is absolutely clear what is meant by open licensing. New kinds of technologies are emerging very rapidly and we think that one of the best ways for the library community to see the fruits of these developments applied to bibliographic data is to permit greater access (and re-use) of this data by the wider technical community - and the general public. Placing restrictions on how bibliographic records may be accessed and re-used effectively inhibits community-led development and innovative use of this kind. > Comment: this paragraph and the next overlap to some degree but overall I think they work well together saying different things and reinforcing the main message (openness => more, and more efficient, access and reuse). However if pushed for space one might want to cut this first paragraph (taken from the original JG draft) and just stick with para 2 (form AS draft) Furthermore, bibliographic records are part of our shared cultural heritage. They should therefore be made available to the public for access and re-use without restriction. Not only will this allow libraries to share records more efficiently and improve quality more rapidly through better, simpler, feedback, but will also make possible more advanced online sites for book-lovers, easier analysis by social scientists, interesting visualizations and summary statistics by journalists and others, as well as many other possibilities we cannot predict in advance. Government agencies and public institutions are increasingly making data open. We strongly encourage the Library of Congress to join this movement by recommending that more bibliographic data is made available for access, re-use and re-distribution without restriction. END OF DRAFT > == Summary of key comments == This is all micro stuff. This set of detailed comments (plus the section below of even more micro stuff) should be put in an appendix and probably distilled a little. Even having put in an appendix I'm a little concerned (as noted above) that the line by line critique looks a little like overkill :) [snip] _______________________________________________ okfn-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.okfn.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/okfn-discuss
