[open-bibliography] Fwd: FAST as "open" data

Fri Jan 6 02:04:31 UTC 2012

It's great that the dump will come available. I wish they would  
announce that more widely, since various folks have asked about it.

I think this answers our question about listing FAST on the open data  
site (which is what this was all about, after our monthly conference  
call) - we should list it as ODC-BY and explain in a note that access  
to the database is limited to API access at the moment with a full  
database dump coming later.

kc

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

> Below Eric Childress' response to my answer about the licensing of the
> FAST data that he kindly provided quickly and with much detail.
>
> Adrian
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Childress,Eric <childree at oclc.org>
> Date: 5 January 2012 22:00
> Subject: RE: FAST as "open" data
> To: Adrian Pohl <adrian.pohl at okfn.org>
> Cc: "Bolander,Robert" <bolander at oclc.org>
>
> Dear Adrian,
>
> Thank you for the query with respect to some confusion that surfaced
> in recent exchanges on the open-bibliography list about OCLC’s release
> of FAST as linked data.  I was surprised to see a private email
> response from OCLC distributed and mis-interpreted on the
> open-bibliography list.  It would have saved some mis-understanding if
> the parties involved had simply queried us for clarification if our
> response to their original query did not seem to make sense. Indeed,
> it should have been particularly simple given that my email address
> was embedded in the excerpted text ;)
>
> And thank you for asking for clarification.
>
> The confusion seems to have surfaced in part due to  the
> unavailability on the FAST landing pages of a link to download the
> entire dataset. That the linked data release was available under an
> Open Data Commons Attribution license led to the expectation that the
> full dump would be made available under those same conditions. Not a
> surprizing expectation, but in the interest of moving FAST out as
> linked data sooner rather than later, we made FAST available as
> decomposed linked data in mid-December and planned to address various
> further-work-we-want-to-do in the New Year including addressing
> suggestions for enhancements, making a dump available, etc.
>
> Earlier this week a request for a download of the full dataset was
> received by one of the system engineers in OCLC Research who responded
> that complete dumps were at present only made available under a
> research-use license and referred the user to me in OCLC Research as I
> field external researcher requests. The system engineer actually
> responded correctly as that had been OCLC’s policy up until the FAST
> linked data release as access to the full database has required that
> researchers and other parties request the FAST file through OCLC’s
> external research support request process. Full files of FAST have
> been made available for many years to a number of parties under this
> process and are provided under our standard research-use license. And
> it was *this standing approach* to offering FAST dumps that was
> referenced in the email correspondence excerpted in Karen Coyle's post
> to the open-bibliography list.  It was what we could offer immediately
> to anyone wanting a dump. The intent was not to confuse, but to be of
> service.
>
> So to point: Karen Coyle’s email
> [http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/open-bibliography/2012-January/001272.html
> ] contains a statement, "So, the file is NOT available under ODC-By"
> which is simply incorrect (FAST in decomposed form was released by
> OCLC under an ODC-BY license; and there really is no ambiguity. The
> data is published under a license; one need only read the license to
> understand what term & conditions apply.). And there is no
> contradiction – as I’ve explained the excerpt was referencing a
> separate and distinct channel for gaining access to FAST.
>
> All said, now that the holiday break is over, OCLC will be making FAST
> available as a dump on our web site under the ODC-BY license in the
> near future. I’d suggest it might be worth waiting for that rather
> than crawling the data through the API. Perhaps in retrospect it would
> have been more useful to have simply informed the person corresponding
> with us that the dump was “coming soon,” but we were trying to be
> helpful with a what's-available-now solution.
>
> Ultimately, our interest is in furthering library linked data
> experimentation. The full FAST dataset may be useful in some other
> circumstances, but it doesn’t do as much to advance experimentation in
> this area as the linked data service. To update those who are
> interested OCLC will be glad to send an email to the listserv when we
> have the full dataset available, including the URL.
>
> OCLC appreciates the strong interest in FAST as linked data and is
> pleased that its availability will support further work in the library
> linked data community.
>
> On a personal note, thank you for the invitation to prepare a blog
> entry on openbiblio.net blog. If I may, I would like to consult
> colleagues about this kind offer and get back to you.
>
> I wish you a very Happy New Years.
>
> Regards,
>
> Eric
>
>
> Eric Childress
> Consulting Project Manager
> OCLC Research
> 6565 Kilgour Place
> Dublin, OH 43017 USA
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ad.pohl at googlemail.com [mailto:ad.pohl at googlemail.com] On Behalf
> Of Adrian Pohl
> Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2012 4:16 PM
> To: Childress,Eric; Childress,Eric; Bolander,Robert
> Subject: FAST as "open" data
>
> Dear Eric, dear Robert,
>
> the announcement of OCLC releasing the FAST schema as Linked Open Data
>
> was taken up in the open bibliographic data community with much
>
> interest. But today's mail by Karen Coyle to the open bibliography
>
> mailing list[1] was rather irritating. I quote from this mail:
>
> On 4 January 2012 21:36, Karen Coyle <kcoyle at kcoyle.net> wrote:
>
>> Someone I know wrote to OCLC to get a copy of FAST and received this reply:
>
>>
>
>> "Currently, complete dumps of the FAST file are not available under an
>
>> ODC-By license.  OCLC does make dumps available on a case-by-case basis
>
>> under a research-use license.  To apply, please contact Eric Childress
>
>> (childree at oclc.org)."
>
> This obvious looks like self-contradictary behaviour: On the one hand
>
> licensing a dataset under ODC-BY which means one can re-use the whole
>
> database or significant parts of it subject only ot the requirement of
>
> attribution and on the other hand telling people they get the whole
>
> dataset only under a "research-use" license.
>
> I would be very happy if OCLC clarified its position and I invite you
>
> to do this in a guest post on the openbiblio.net blog.
>
> I am looking forward to your answer.
>
> All the best
>
> Adrian
>
> [1]  
> http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/open-bibliography/2012-January/001272.html
>
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-- 
Karen Coyle
kcoyle at kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet