[pd-discuss] Fwd: Feature suggestion for PD Works database

Sun Jan 10 14:36:45 UTC 2010

Below is a suggestion about popularity of works for Public Domain
Works from David Brake (http://davidbrake.org/) Lecturer, Media &
Communications at the University of Leicester.

Jonathan

---------- Forwarded message ----------
I do think that library data on number of times books/authors have
been signed out would be more useful than the approach used by Rufus
to guesstimate popularity. You could even use two or more different
sources and contrast them - British Library signing out data would
give you what academics want to read while public library data would
be more populist.

I have wanted for a long time to have a way to be alerted when the
most important works get out of copyright. I had thought someone would
have done this much earlier but hopefully you or someone else could do
it.

I would have suggested this on the discussion list but I was reluctant
to sign up to a mailing list just to make one suggestion.

If you wouldn't mind I encourage you to forward my thoughts to the
list and see if anyone has access to the relevant data and can
integrate it.
---
David Brake (http://davidbrake.org/) Lecturer, Media & Communications,
U of Leicester http://www.le.ac.uk/mc/

On 5 Jan 2010, at 18:11, Jonathan Gray wrote:

> Yes indeed - we're certainly interested in using more of this kind of
> data at Public Domain Works! OKF Director Rufus Pollock has also been
> thinking about this:
>
>  http://www.rufuspollock.org/2009/11/05/author-significance-from-catalogue-data/
>
> On an unrelated note - I wonder if there are any potential areas where
> the OKF and the University of Leicester Department of Media and
> Communication might be able to collaborate? We'd love to hear more
> about any research in the department related to the public domain or
> open data. Also would be great if there were relevant things (e.g.
> calls for interns, etc.) that we could send to department mailing
> list!
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Jonathan
>
> On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 2:31 PM, David Brake <dbrake at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Is there any way you could get ahold of data about author popularity - perhaps from libraries? Or Project Gutenberg? That way you could highlight the most popular authors who are coming out of copyright at any given time. This would be a valuable service for projects like librivox and Project Gutenberg to help people prioritise their efforts and would be a good way to raise the profile of the project and of the public domain as a whole...
>> --
>> A Zen Master goes up to a hot dog vendor. "Can you make me One with Everything?"
>> Also see http://davidbrake.org/ (home page), http://blog.org/ (personal weblog) and http://get.to/lseblog (academic groupblog)
>>
>>
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>>
>
>
>
> --
> Jonathan Gray
>
> Community Coordinator
> The Open Knowledge Foundation
> http://www.okfn.org

-- 
Jonathan Gray

Community Coordinator
The Open Knowledge Foundation
http://www.okfn.org