[Eg-oversight-board] Agenda suggestion: Research if EG community can use OCLC records
Andrea Buntz Neiman
aneiman at kent.lib.md.us
Wed May 14 12:00:14 EDT 2014
It's more time-consuming to retrieve, but LOC also has RDA records.
Their new interface seems to support a batch download, and they use the
040$e RDA designation, so if you go here
http://catalog2.loc.gov/vwebv/searchKeyword
and enter
040E RDA
as your term, it should return a set of RDA records. Looks like you can
export them one page (up to 100 records) at a time into a UTF-8 or
MARC-8 file.
Some appear to be without subject headings, but they have the RDA 264,
336, 337, and 338 tags.
IIRC as LOC is a federal government entity, these records are free to
use & in the public domain -- anyway not a perfect solution, but it
keeps us from having to deal with OCLC and its complications.
A.
Andrea Buntz Neiman, MLS
Librarian II, Public Services
Kent County Public Library
408 High Street
Chestertown, MD 21620
410-778-3636 x2115
www.kentcountylibrary.org
On 5/14/2014 11:07 AM, Rogan Hamby wrote:
> Rather than retype everything I'm going to copy and paste from IRC for
> this:
>
> eeevil
>
> dbs / RoganH: heh ... I just brought up that point on the EOB list... ;)
>
> 10:54
>
> RoganH
>
> eeevil: that's actually debatable
>
> 10:54
>
> RoganH
>
> eeevil: and unfortunately recent court rulings would be against us there
>
> 10:54
>
> eeevil
>
> RoganH: the fact-ness of MARC, you mean?
>
> 10:54
>
> RoganH
>
> eeevil: yep.
>
> 10:55
>
> RoganH
>
> eeevil: the descriptive versus expressive work debate is an old one.
> For example, rankings used to be considered descriptive and facts but
> recent court rulings have said if a unique process discovered them
> then they're not.
>
> 10:55
>
> eeevil
>
> RoganH: I'm behind the times, then! IIRC, it was just 2005-ish when
> the consensus was "they're facts" ... but, 9 years is a long time
>
> 10:55
>
> RoganH
>
> eeevil: so if you have a unique process to creating a MARC .... now,
> another court may rule the opposite way
>
> 10:56
>
> RoganH
>
> eeevil: this stuff is up in the air, there's not absolute black and
> white on it
>
> 10:56
>
> eeevil
>
> hrm... I thought Fiest did away with the process argument... but
> /again/ IANAL ;)
>
> 10:57
>
> RoganH
>
> eeevil: no, Fiest vs Rural established that a low enough amount of
> original work is not enough but each judge gets to rule what is above
> that threshold
>
> 10:58
>
> RoganH
>
> eeevil: now, me, I would rule that a MARC record is below that
> threshold and I can probably find 3 judges who would agree with me at
> least one that wouldn't
>
> 10:58
>
> RoganH
>
> eeevil: the question becomes which judge hears your case?
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, May 14, 2014 at 10:52 AM, Mike Rylander <mrylander at gmail.com
> <mailto:mrylander at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> IANAL, nor on the EOB, but I've been following this discussion closely
> and I just want to inject a small point.
>
> The OCLC policy documentation, when discussing what is allowed or
> permitted, refers most often to "our catalog" or "the catalog". That
> implies (in the legal sense) that it is speaking of the collection (or
> a substantial portion thereof) as a whole, as opposed to a single
> record. Again, IANAL, but my understanding is that individual MARC
> records are considered facts, and thus not copyrightable in the US
> (and, indeed, many of OCLC's records derive substantially from record
> created by LoC, which are public domain by definition in the US). It
> seems, then, that OCLC's policy concern is with the wholesale
> harvesting of library catalogs, and not the distribution of individual
> records. This may be because they can't legally assert any control
> over individual records, or may be because the don't have any desire
> to do so; or I may simply be reading what I want into their policy
> statements ...
>
> For a little layperson background on compilation (database, catalog)
> vs underlying data (MARC records as facts), you can see:
> http://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/database.html
>
> With that, I'll go back to lurking!
>
>
> On Wed, May 14, 2014 at 10:30 AM, Rogan Hamby
> <rogan.hamby at gmail.com <mailto:rogan.hamby at gmail.com>> wrote:
> > I can easily imagine confusion playing a significant part in
> this. But, if
> > the policy Yamil pointed us to does in fact supersede the old
> one in full
> > then it's the one we have to make a decision based on in terms
> of it being
> > OCLC's position. Context is valuable but in legal matters only
> when there's
> > ambiguity in terms of an agreement to show intent or if there is
> an attempt
> > to show a party acting in bad faith.
> >
> > Their FAQ further tightens down on their intent pretty clearly.
> >
> http://www.oclc.org/worldcat/community/record-use/policy/questions.en.html
> >
> > #10 on their FAQ further clarifies what is implied elsewhere
> that "[OCLC]
> > does not claim copyright ownership of individual records." The
> conservative
> > legal thing to do would be to gain access from a library who
> owns said
> > records to use them.
> >
> > However I do a possible avenue in question 7 "A nonmember or agent
> > (commercial or noncommercial) is seeking permission to harvest
> or receive a
> > copy of our catalog that includes our extracted WorldCat data so
> it can
> > incorporate the data into its product or service." This would
> include the
> > subset in question though it would only include instances where
> the library
> > had holdings associated with those records. Neither
> descriptions 1 or 2
> > would apply to the Evergreen project as a legal entity. However,
> > description 3 of type of nonmember or agency lists criteria for
> allowing
> > entities excluded by 1 or 2 and among the terms lists terms
> "comparable"
> > (which lets a lower legal standard) and allows it when it
> further's OCLC's
> > public purpose, there are limitations that essentially prevent
> it from
> > harming WorldCat and additional exchange of value. Note, that
> this does not
> > have to be approved by OCLC and only has to be comparable (which
> is why I'm
> > not quoting whole sections). While there is not an exchange of
> services
> > there is a comparable exchange of value based on improved ILS
> QA. The
> > limitation would be the limited amount of records used.
> Clearly, we don't
> > need enough to come anywhere near to duplicating WorldCat for
> test data.
> > And OCLC's public purpose states that "we will work together to
> improve
> > access to the information held in libraries around the globe"
> which I think
> > Evergreen and Koha both do as open source projects.
> >
> > Now, would I feel comfortable going forward with this argument?
> I would be
> > but I also tend to lean strongly towards the side of
> "information wants to
> > be free."
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, May 14, 2014 at 9:21 AM, Dan Wells <dbw2 at calvin.edu
> <mailto:dbw2 at calvin.edu>> wrote:
> >>
> >> The new policy does supersede the old, but I still feel the old
> provides
> >> important context. The original version of the new policy was
> much more
> >> severe, and raised quite a stir, and the language we have now
> was meant to
> >> be a compromise to the many (myself included) who felt we were
> losing
> >> significant freedoms the old policy allowed. Of course, in the
> process, the
> >> language became quite complicated, and I doubt even OCLC itself
> truly knows
> >> what is allowed and what is not (and hence their apparent
> unwillingness to
> >> give a straight answer).
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Dan
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Daniel Wells
> >>
> >> Library Programmer/Analyst
> >>
> >> Hekman Library, Calvin College
> >>
> >> 616.526.7133 <tel:616.526.7133>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> eg-oversight-board mailing list
> >> eg-oversight-board at list.evergreen-ils.org
> <mailto:eg-oversight-board at list.evergreen-ils.org>
> >>
> http://list.evergreen-ils.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/eg-oversight-board
> >>
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > eg-oversight-board mailing list
> > eg-oversight-board at list.evergreen-ils.org
> <mailto:eg-oversight-board at list.evergreen-ils.org>
> >
> http://list.evergreen-ils.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/eg-oversight-board
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Mike Rylander
> | Director of Research and Development
> | Equinox Software, Inc. / Your Library's Guide to Open Source
> | phone: 1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457)
> | email: miker at esilibrary.com <mailto:miker at esilibrary.com>
> | web: http://www.esilibrary.com
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> eg-oversight-board mailing list
> eg-oversight-board at list.evergreen-ils.org
> http://list.evergreen-ils.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/eg-oversight-board
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://list.evergreen-ils.org/pipermail/eg-oversight-board/attachments/20140514/8b2cba34/attachment.html>
More information about the eg-oversight-board
mailing list