[open-bibliography] DOIs and openbiblio

Wed Feb 2 10:04:50 UTC 2011

On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 9:24 AM, Adrian Pohl <adrian.pohl at okfn.org> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Isabel Holroyd of biab online asked me how the DOI system[1] should be
> assessed in the light of the Principles on Open Bibliographic Data or
> Open Knowledge in general.
>
> In my opinion, this question isn't that easy to answer because on one
> side DOIs aren't open in the sense that not anybody can provide DOIs
> but on the other side they are open in the sense that anybody can use,
> aggregate and disseminate already published DOIs. And it is this open
> use and reuse of bibliographic data the openbiblio principles adress.
> So, I believe, you can't deduce a recommendation to use or not use
> DOIs from the principles. As I am not that familiar with the DOI
> system, there might be other problems with it - e.g. with long-term
> availibility of a free resolving mechanism or other.
>

I think if we regard them as identiers and not resolvable addresses then we
have the simpler question of whether identifiers are copyright. ACS regard
their CAS identifiers as copyright - this is legal but not
community-friendly.

The best answer is probably to ask DOI/Crossref. If they say NO, then we
don't use them, if they say YES we use them if they say fudge we use them
with a take-down. I am fairly optimistic they will say yes.

>
> What do you think?
>
> All the best
> Adrian
>
> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_object_identifier
>
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-- 
Peter Murray-Rust
Reader in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069
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