[open-bibliography] comprehensive bibliographic database of "open" resources?

Tue Aug 17 05:33:18 UTC 2010

Karen Coyle <kcoyle at kcoyle.net> wrote:

> Quoting Peter Murray-Rust <pm286 at cam.ac.uk>:
>
>
> > I had not realised till I started this Open Bibliography project
> > #jiscopenbib how awful and confused the state of serials (journals)
> > biblilography was. I am appalled and angry about the way that academia has
> > handed over its property for serials bibliography - or allowed it to be
> > stolen.
>
> This is what the BKN project is about: providing tools to capture that  
> serials bibliography:
>    http://www.bibkn.org/
>
> I assume Jim Pitman is on vacation or he probably would have answered  
> this himself. 

Thanks Karen for the pointer and prompt.
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. 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. 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. 
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. 
Moral/legal support and provision of a fiscal shell for coordination of activities by a non-profit like OKFN would help.
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?
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

ph: 510-642-9970  fax: 510-642-7892
e-mail: pitman at stat.berkeley.edu
URL: http://www.stat.berkeley.edu/users/pitman

> >
> > Unless I am wrong, there is no open bibliographic data for serials other
> > than that associated with Open Access publications. Open Access is itself a
> > poor formal definition and only recently have people started using Gratis
> > and LIbre to qualify it. So unless something is OA Libre then there is no
> > gurantee that the metadata or the bibliography is Libre - just Gratis at the
> > whim of providers. (There may be soemthign additional that PMC or UKPMC
> > add).
> >
> > I did not realise that publishers sold their bibliographic metadata to
> > secondary publishers. That means that when I write a paper, the journal
> > sends off the metadata to some third party who protects with licences,
> > paywalls, but mainly FUD. And sells my metadata which I created back to my
> > employer
> >
> > The whole system is paralyzed by FUD. You can only do anything with
> > non-Libre information except after negotation.
> > </RANT>
> >
> > Anger is not the best rational emotion so I'll calm down
> >
> > It needn't be like this. When I create an article I own my own name. I own
> > the title of the article. I own the right to mention the name of the
> > institution I am employed by.
> >
> > I regard the name of the journal I send the article to as in the public
> > domain. If I write a letter to the Guardian I don't have to get their
> > permission to use the word "Guardian". So why should the Journal of
> > Extortionate Prices own the metadata of the artcile *I* wrote. Or to sell it
> > on to third parties in a restrictive manner? So that I can't use my own
> > material without permission.
> >
> > Perhaps because the publisher has obtained a unique identifier? Or because
> > they have added page numbers? I don't know. It's as if the DVLC sued me for
> > publishing the license plate on my car.
> >
> > There are lots of things that can be done. Openstreet map got 250,000
> > volunteers to map street names onto an open map. They did this by cycling
> > and walking the globe. Took 3-5 years. Compared with this it's trivial.
> >
> > Simple solution:
> > * get every first year student to compile a bibliography of their subject by
> > hand. Portion out the work just like OSM does. A list of all journals and
> > all articles which students use to find new ones. How many papers published
> > per year? perhaps 5 million (I guess it's less) how many universities. Let's
> > take a low estimate of 1000. That's 5000 papers per university. That's a
> > trivial amount to produce. it's 100 papers per week. Per university.
> >
> > It's legal. It's simple. It could be done by a mixture of carrot and stick.
> > Prizes for those who do the most. It's educational (well at least at the
> > start). It's legal.
> >
> > So why not? Because the academic system cannot get its act together. Ask
> > most librarians and they'll tut-tut - not high-enough quality, not legal
> > enough (of course it's legal - you don't need permission of secondary
> > publishers to cite papers in your thesis).
> >
> > If the universities did it, they would be unstoppable. Even 100 universities
> > (perhaps 1% of all universities) did it it would work.
> >
> > But I have tried this with trying to get the Universities to provide
> > bibliography and metadata for their own theses. They seem incapable of
> > joining this up.
> >
> > So - who is going to front this?
> > * universities?
> > * JISC?
> > * or the OKF.
> >
> > I'm not mad. There are enough examples of citizen action that shows this is
> > completely tractable.
> >
> > And of course we'd produce a better product. Because we understand what we
> > want. Conventional publishesr give people what can be sold. And that sale
> > has to include restrictions on use, because that increases monopolistic
> > dominance.
> >
> > And I have some exciting ideas about better products
> >
> > P.
> >
> > Citations are more difficult. There are more, and they are trickier to
> > identify.
> >
> > --
> > Peter Murray-Rust
> > Reader in Molecular Informatics
> > Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
> > University of Cambridge
> > CB2 1EW, UK
> > +44-1223-763069
> >
>
>
>
> -- 
> Karen Coyle
> kcoyle at kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
> ph: 1-510-540-7596
> m: 1-510-435-8234
> skype: kcoylenet
>
>
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