[open-bibliography] Fwd: LibraryCloud university of, florida

Tue Mar 22 12:31:42 UTC 2011

On 22/03/2011 12:00, open-bibliography-request at lists.okfn.org wrote:
 >> I think we should ask for dumps, but we either have to be concerned
 >> about keeping them up to date or we should expressly treat these as
 >> "experimental" and thus relieve the providing agency of the burden of
 >> reproducing dumps on a regular basis. (And I'm not convinced that a
 >> succession of full dumps truly serves the needs of folks building
 >> databases.)

 >Understood.  Would it be too much to ask libraries to plug their 
 >catalogs into OAI-PMH?
 >--Jim

Sadly probably yes, given the closed nature of commercial library 
management systems and relative lack of development in this area.

I've grafted OAI-PMH functionality onto a library catalogue / LMS in a 
former job and attempted to get a commercial vendors solution up and 
running in my present one. Whilst both worked to a point, neither was 
exactly straightforward. The former required a lot of hacking.

An additional complication would be licensing restrictions around record 
ownership. Any OAI-PMH repository 'on the side' would arguably have to 
handle exclusively open data, which means passing it selected metadata 
from the LMS. Many libraries are still unsure of the IPR history of much 
of their data. With COMET, we are hoping to provide some clarity here at 
least.

To throw this back, it seems clear to me that complete dumps are of most 
interest to consumers of open data, above and beyond feeds/API's (which 
are marginally more achievable for libraries). How useful is it for 
those in the business of consuming open data to have regular updates and 
or some form of version control over data dumps and at what frequency? 
Would you satisfied with a 'one-off', which is much more achievable?

-- 
Edmund Chamberlain
Systems Development Librarian
COMET Project Manager(Cambridge Open METadata)
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

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