[open-bibliography] open-bibliography Digest, Vol 7, Issue 13

Tue Aug 17 15:42:42 UTC 2010

On 17/08/2010 12:00, open-bibliography-request at lists.okfn.org wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
>
>     1. Re: comprehensive bibliographic database	of	"open" resources?
>        (Thomas Krichel)
>     2. Re: comprehensive bibliographic database of "open" resources?
>        (Peter Murray-Rust)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 07:58:07 +0200
> From: Thomas Krichel<krichel at openlib.org>
> Subject: Re: [open-bibliography] comprehensive bibliographic database
> 	of	"open" resources?
> To: List for Working Group on Open Bibliographic Data
> 	<open-bibliography at lists.okfn.org>
> Message-ID:<20100817055806.GI19125 at openlib.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
>
>    Jim Pitman writes
>
>> I have been offline a few days and only just read Peter's post. Of
>> course, it was precisely his sentiments exactly which motiviated the
>> BKN project.
>
>    The BKN project has also sponsored http://3lib.org, which is a side
>    project to collect those sources that are already there, such as
>    CiteSeer, DBLP, PubMed, RePEc etc. The main function of that dataset
>    is to feed AuthorClaim at http://authorclaim.org. In the summer I
>    have been working on a robot to extract CrossRef data from
>    AuthorClaim profiles. It's not released yet. Work on these unfunded
>    activities is slow but it is not affected by funding uncertainties.
>    I have been working on these issues for many years within the RePEc
>    project.
>
>    Help would certainly be welcome. I am particularly interested in
>    separate initiatives run by others with the prospect of exchanging
>    data. I understand that the JISC openbib project has some serials
>    data but my question here to know when this will be available has
>    gone unanswered.
>
>    Cheers,
>
>    Thomas Krichel                    http://openlib.org/home/krichel
>                                  http://authorclaim.org/profile/pkr1
>                                                 skype: thomaskrichel
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 07:52:01 +0100
> From: Peter Murray-Rust<pm286 at cam.ac.uk>
> Subject: Re: [open-bibliography] comprehensive bibliographic database
> 	of "open" resources?
> To: List for Working Group on Open Bibliographic Data
> 	<open-bibliography at lists.okfn.org>
> Message-ID:
> 	<AANLkTi=fD7Jmgtqw-xPFGfZPR=KzRhtfBfvqjxezHKX4 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 6:33 AM, Jim Pitman<pitman at stat.berkeley.edu>wrote:
>
>> Karen Coyle<kcoyle at kcoyle.net>  wrote:
>>
>>>
>> Thanks Karen for the pointer and prompt.
>> I have been offline a few days and only just read Peter's post.
>
>
> It was only sent a few hours ago!
>
>
>> Of course, it was precisely
>> his sentiments exactly which motiviated the BKN project. We've been trying,
>> but its been a struggle, and
>> our proposals for grant renewal were denied by NSF. Elements of these
>> proposals could easily be recycled into
>> other potentially more successful efforts.
>
>
> I agree. We have much of the planning done. We understand the data/metadata
>
>
>> We have some limited funding left, and I expect to
>> get continuing trickles from various sources. But I am a professional
>> mathematician not a professional librarian or software developer.
>>
>
> And I'm a professional chemist!
>
>
>> I'd rather spend my time doing math research (or even math biblio research)
>> than biblio infra development. So I'd love to see someone more mainstream in
>> the
>> library community pick up this theme with some spurring which the likes of
>> Peter and myself could gladly provide.
>>
>
> Yes. I hope we can get enough people interested. There are a few librarians
> like Harvard who occasionally put their heads over the parapet and say "we
> mandateX be Open" - and then they disappear. It's actually trivial (and
> completely safe) for librarians to start working in this area. They won't go
> to jail. If the universities are sued - and they probably will be for
> challenging monopolies - the cases can be defended.
>
>
>> Moral/legal support and provision of a fiscal shell for coordination of
>> activities by a non-profit like OKFN would help.
>>
>
> And although I am only one of OKFN I think the input is good and continuing
>
>
>> I think I've learned some lessons from how difficult it has been to make
>> progress in this area.
>> I'll collect my thoughts on potential strategies, of which there are many,
>> and be glad to share with this group
>> if there is suitable encouragement.
>> Anyone interested in contributing to this effort, please contact me
>> directly, and if there is enough interest maybe Jonathan you could
>> organize a suitable communication forum beneath OKFN?
>>
>
> Agreed.
>
>
>> many thanks
>> --Jim
>> ----------------------------------------------
>> Jim Pitman
>> Director, Bibliographic Knowledge Network Project
>> http://www.bibkn.org/
>>
>> Professor of Statistics and Mathematics
>> University of California
>> 367 Evans Hall # 3860
>> Berkeley, CA 94720-3860
>>
>>

A note on this from a Librarian. Firstly I'd personally dispute the 
concepts of unified network,
resources and power on this scale that libraries have. To my mind, no 
single entity currently exists
  within Libraries of sufficient power or influence to push this through 
onto agendas, not in the Russell group,
not nationally or internationally.

I'd agree with the other comment that libraries have generally lacked 
in-house technical skills,
and have generally out-sourced and used commercial software, like many 
other areas of University activity (finance, student records etc).
This is slowly changing and there are some great open-source projects 
underway now, but either way there is an eventual cost to an institution 
(in techies or license fees).

So supporting a wide-scale open access bibliographic database of this 
nature would not be easy, in terms of cost of getting
the ball rolling creation and maintenance of data (mostly from scratch) 
and technical ability.

But it could happen nationally at least, and the recent SCONUL shared 
services report for academic libraries
indicated steps in thinking in this direction. There are also many 
advantages to back-office library work in having this data freely available.
However, were this to work in the fashion you seemingly indicated (down 
tools and record all articles we own then share them),
it would need time and resources that would have to be diverted away 
from current library services,
possibly those that people on this list may perceive as 'legacy', but 
may be of value to others.

Those in charge of libraries (often not necessarily Librarians) would 
question why staff time was being spent
  're-keying' data that has already been paid for. You would need to 
convince them that the data was as useful or more
so than the current subscription services (who are likely to sue us) in 
its open format. That would need a good high-level argument.
The eventual cost of operation vs the cost of A&I subscriptions (Web of 
Knowledge, Scopus etc.) is one here.

You would also need to convince them to let services stop or slide for a 
period whilst the data created from scratch.
This which would cause complaints, affect metrics, and thus funding.

Another note. Academic libraries are run as a reader-focused service 
with often very little freedom for
individuals to pursue personal projects, especially those with technical 
ability.
Library staff (not all of whom are Librarians) are really at the mercy 
of their managers as to how they spend their time.
Following individual interests over responsibilities is usually met with 
caution and sometimes official action.
This is part of the reason behind the Arcadia fellowship at Cambridge, 
to allow people the chance to pursue individual projects.

If this is the source of the 'apathy' you talk about, I don't personally 
think that's a fair term,
although I can understand the personal feeling behind it.

> There is all this money going into Institutional repositories. That's
> potentially an ideal place to work for collecting bibliography. Do they have
> a bibliography of the stuff they've got in there? The academics own papers?
> They SHOULD have. I bet most of them haven't. My grants are topsliced to pay
> for libraries.I'd like to see some public return.
>
In Cambridge at least, I believe work is being done in this issue with 
regards to REF. The data is being sourced from a commercial supplier.

> But I will be castigated for attacking libraries.
>

Not at all. In 10+ years in the job, I'm personally surprised no-one has 
shouted about more it loudly.
There are historical reasons. Traditionally (pre automation), article 
level metadata creation has never really been
done within academic libraries, certainly not in a whole-sale fashion. 
Its always been outsourced.
We have a history of print based abstract indexes from specialist 
organisations and groups
through to CD-ROMS and the current set of online databases. All supplied 
by commercial entities and
all subject to the increasingly nefarious changes in copyright 
legislation that accompanied them.

That is not to say this should continue to be the case. There has been 
work to compile and distribute
those datasets that are truly open, and Librarians *are* involved in 
this and their creation.
I'm sure Pubmed employs a lot of Librarians, although they may not be 
paid for by your top-slice :)

> We *can* do it without libraries. It's much more work. It'll be messy.

Were you to go down the crowdsourcing route, I'm would hope least a few 
Librarians would join in 'unofficially',
hopefully at a level greater than data entry. Many would struggle to see 
the need though.

Personally I feel it may actually be easier to convince the publishers 
to give the data up for free re-use,
especially if they can see it as a means to get sell more full text.

-- 
Edmund Chamberlain
Systems Development Librarian
Electronic Services and Systems
Cambridge University Library
West Road,
Cambridge
CB3 9DR

tel: (+44) 01223 747437
fax: (+44) 01223 333160

email: emc59 at cam.ac.uk
> But I am continuing with this. The Green Chain Reaction is mainstream.
>
> P.
>
>
> C;lever
>

-- 
Edmund Chamberlain
Systems Development Librarian	
Electronic Services and Systems
Cambridge University Library
West Road,
Cambridge
CB3 9DR

tel: (+44) 01223 747437
fax: (+44) 01223 333160

email: emc59 at cam.ac.uk