[open-bibliography] Library support and REST

Tue Oct 26 08:34:33 UTC 2010

On Oct 26 2010, Peter Murray-Rust wrote:

> It's 
> clrear from these and other discussions that libraries and librarians 
> don't care about freedom of books, etc. and 

[snip]
>I had hoped to find some feeling among libraraians that they cared about
>this but I haven't seen any - I've blogged, tweeted, etc. and I know these
>get around.

I feel as a librarian that I have to reply to this discussion. However, I 
follow this list as an extremely interested observer and cannot claim to 
fully understand everything that is discussed here.

There *is* interest within the library community (as recent releases of 
data have demonstrated I think) but there is perhaps a lack of 
understanding. I believe that librarians do care enormously about freedom 
of information, freedom of books, that is my experience across the range of 
libraries and professional activity. So perhaps what it needs is a clear, 
basic (really basic) explanation of what is being asked and how librarians 
can get involved (in a blog post somewhere perhaps?) which I would then be 
more than happy to promote, re-tweet and talk about to the many librarians 
I know. I don't feel in a knowledgable enough position just now to do this 
myself. I'm already awaiting more details of the open bibliography 
community involvement project that Peter has already talked about and 
which, again, I'd be happy to promote (just wanted to see what it would 
involve before doing so).

I will return to interested lurking...

Celine

-- 
Céline Carty
English Cataloguing
Cambridge University Library
Cambridge CB3 9DR