Library 2.0 Gang 04/10: New Models for Bibliographic Record Supply

"Up until recently the world of bibliographic record supply has been fairly stable. The suppliers, practices and workflows currently used by libraries in their cataloguing and acquisition processes evolved twenty or so years ago and have changed very little since. Over the last couple of years we have seen the beginnings of possible change in this area. Open Library launched with the mission to provide an openly available page for every book. (Taking a preview look at their new interface at upstream.openlibrary.org, it is clear that they are expanding that to include a page for every author and subject.) Then, the recently acquired by PTFS, LibLime entered the field with their ‡biblios.net service offering low-cost cataloguing and record sharing service. More recently still Sky River launched its service offering a alternative services to incumbents such as OCLC, claimed to be of lower cost and higher quality, with no restrictions on record reuse. All this has been happening against the background of OCLC going through very public issues around its record reuse policy. Joining Gang regular, Ex Libris CTO, Oren Beit-Arie and myself on the call we have two very relevant guests for this topic. Karen Coyle, who joined us last month to talk about the Semantic Web, also has close association with the Open Library so is ideally placed to talk about their influence. Leslie Straus, Sky River President, also joined us providing an overview of the services they are offering and the drivers behind them."