[open-bibliography] Virtual meeting today

Tue Dec 7 15:35:45 UTC 2010

I'm confused by the Etherpad note that the meeting has taken place --  
I thought it would be in an hour from now, but maybe I have my time  
zones mixed up. GMT is 8 hours from Pacific, right?

Anyway, I have LOTS of comments on the draft, some of which I will  
summarize here.

First, there are wording changes that I would normally like to make.  
However, because there is the UK/US language difference, if a native  
UK speaker has already gone over this, then we should discuss before I  
suggest those changes.

Other comments:

1. Do not use "free", which is ambiguous. Use "without cost" or  
"without restriction" as appropriate.

2. Do not use "record" -- the citations created by authors are not  
records. Can we find another term, such as "bibliographic  
description", "bibliographic data"?

3. "addressing" does not work for me... I want to use something based  
on the term "location"

4. I don't think the list of data elements in the first second is  
helpful, and I don't think it necessarily serves both functions  
(identification and location). Perhaps for actual identification of a  
publication we can refer to library catalog entries and citation rules  
like MLA without needing a list of data elements. For the location  
function (assuming this means actually getting your hands or eyes on  
the item) you need a library catalog entry or a URL (for online  
documents).

5. I'm not sure why the heading in this first section is  
"Bibliographic data already in the public domain", unless the  
intention is "Why we maintain that bibliographic data is not covered  
by copyright." The wording does not say that to me.

6. the section on URIs seems to be aimed at online resources, not  
bibliographic data in the web environment. We have bib data in the web  
environment that does not have URIs or URLs.

7. I would not assert that user-generated tags are public domain. We  
can't make that decision for all users who contribute tags. I agree  
that it is a good idea to get users to agree that use of their tags is  
unrestricted, but the circumstances in which users tag things varies  
greatly, so this broad statement is problematic.

7a. Rather than asserting that things are public domain, I would  
rather assert that these things are not covered by intellectual  
property rights. It's a language quibble, but I feel that "public  
domain" is a legal term and not a description. That may just be me.

8. Subject headings and classification notations may be considered  
creative work on the part of the cataloger. I would put them in the  
second category of data elements to which rights may apply.

9. "Sponsorship" -- is this sponsorship of the content or the  
publication? I assume that it refers to the sponsorship of research  
that is often cited.

10. This is more of a general concept, but in my  own mind I am  
unclear on the rights status of name authority data. Selecting one  
fact to represent a display of many similar facts does not seem to  
meet the creativity requirement (that US law requires). But I agree  
that it belongs in this "grey area" category in the document.

11. #3 of the recommendations should refer to ANY restrictions on the  
data, including attribution. Once we start mashing up data, anything  
but pure open use becomes impossible. So perhaps this point should be  
about ANY restrictions, of which non-commercial is one, attribution is  
another, and even share-alike is another. (Note, if W3C provenance  
work becomes a reality, we could say that people should pass on  
provenance data that is received. This wouldn't so much be for the  
rights issue, in my mind, but so that people can make selections based  
on whose data they trust most. One issue with provenance is that is  
could give people a way to attempt to control their data, and we will  
probably need to address that if it becomes a reality.)

I hope this all doesn't sound harsh -- I didn't take the time to  
soften my language :-) in my haste to get this down. I can make the  
purely editorial corrections on the Google doc if you would like. The  
other bits we may need to discuss. Another option would be that I make  
changes -- perhaps in another copy of the document? (I can't remember  
off-hand if Google docs has a "revert" function) And then we can  
discuss that version.

kc

Quoting Adrian Pohl <adrian.pohl at okfn.org>:

> Hello,
>
> it's the month's first tuesday and so today the Openbiblio virtual
> meeting is scheduled at 16:00 GMT. Unfortunately I can't attend due to
> private obligations. Anyway, I created an Etherpad for the meeting:
>
> http://okfnpad.org/6th-open-bibliography-meeting
>
> I proposed one agenda point on the etherpad: Commenting and correcting
> the principles on open bibliographic data draft.
> Peter, Mark and I did some more work on the principles and would
> bevery happy to get some comments by other people.
> Please add further agenda points as needed.
>
> Hope you'll have a fruitful meeting.
>
> Cheers
> Adrian
>
> _______________________________________________
> open-bibliography mailing list
> open-bibliography at lists.okfn.org
> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-bibliography
>

-- 
Karen Coyle
kcoyle at kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet