Open Bibliography
UK Serials Group Annual Conference 2011
Rufus Pollock
@rufuspollock[.org]
[Open Knowledge Foundation]
[Shuttleworth Foundation Fellow]
Licensed under cc-by v3.0 (any jurisdiction)
The Open Knowledge Foundation
Founded 2004 / Not-for-profit
Build communities and tools that
Help people create, use and share information
http://www.okfn.org/vision/
Sonnets to statistics, genes to geodata
Community based, with 15+ projects and workings groups
Including Open Bibliography
Open = Freedom for Anyone to Use / Re-use / Redistribute
Anyone means Anyone!
I: In the Beginning
In the Beginning ...
Was the Word
(Sumer, Mesopotamia, 5000 years ago)
And the Word Was Costly
But then (the) Printing (Press) Happened
And Then Computers
And Reproduction Went on Getting Cheaper
Until Now ...
Cost ~ 0
In the Midst of Our Digital Revolution
II: Libraries and Publishing
Once Upon a Time
When Reproduction was Costly
Libraries and Publishing
Were About
Access, Storage and Reproduction
But Gradually that Changed ...
Matching / Filtering / Finding
(Think of the 'G' word ...)
Remember Ranganathan
(and his Rules)
To every reader his book
To every book its reader
Save the time of the User
...
III: Openness
In a World of Zero (Reproduction) Costs
Matching is King
And Just as Nature Abhors a Vacuum
So the Digital Abhors a Friction
Openness = Zero Friction
Every Paywall I Have to Climb
Every PDF I have to Extract
Every Password I Have to Type In
Are Slowing M e
D
o
w
n
And, More Importantly
Are Slowing Down the Innovators
The Builders of Tools and Services
Of Course, People Have to Be Paid
And Electricity Generated
But Much of this Production Is Already Paid For
(That Thing Called Academia)
Data and Content are a Platform
Not a Commodity
You Build on Them, Not Sell Them
Plenty of Ways to Make Money Without Going Closed
IV: The (Meta)Data
Both Content and (Meta)Data
Will One Day Be Free
But 'One' Day Can Be a Long Time
(Meta)Data is the Easy Way In
Why?
It's the Skeleton - Everything Attaches to It
Want to offer a book purchase service?
Want to interlink with Wikipedia?
Want to do analytics?
Less (Commercially) 'Valuable'
(More Copies Around)
Level of Reuse
Importance of Bug-fixing
Data is like Code (Data = Code)
JISC OpenBib and Bibliographica
3m Open Records Provided by British Library
Integration with Wikipedia
Distributed Social Bibliography Platform
Allow Users to Participate
To Share (and to Leave)
And We Have a Path Back to Source
V: Wrapping Up
The Future's Bright
The Future's Open
But Seriously Folks ...
The Day's Coming When There Won't Be a Choice
Thank-You
Rufus Pollock
@rufuspollock[.org]
rufus [dot] pollock [at] okfn [dot] org
Credits
itoworld-openstreetmap-2009.jpg: http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterito/3054501076/
