Openness and Libraries

Dr Rufus Pollock

[Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge]
[Open Knowledge Foundation]
Licensed under cc-by v3.0 (any jurisdiction)

What's Open Mean?

http://www.opendefinition.org/

Open = Freedom to Access / Use / Re-use / Redistribute

About Content (Texts) and Data

Information is Special: Non-Rivalrous

(Very Cheaply Copied ~ Zero Cost)

Openness is the new Normal

Open Source

Open Content

Open Data

Why?

Openness Makes it

(Much) EASIER to

Access and Reuse Resources

An Example

From my own research

Information Production over Time

Library Resources and Creative Writing at Rome by A.J. Marshall

The Issues

How many times did I have to log in?

The Issues

Why no plain text?

The Issues

Why are references not linked

And what about if I want to follow a reference?

The Issues

Usually yet another walled garden ...

Conclusion: Open Access Makes Me (much) More Productive

Its about tools and the transactions costs not just the material

Book Production and the Public Domain

Total CUL Holdings by Year (Black) and Public Domain (Red)

Data Issues

Getting data is hard. Can I share it (and my changes)? No!

Data Issues

Can I mix it with other data?

Data Issues

Can we make changes? (More than 50% of authors have no death date ...)

Reuse and Recombination is Key Here

The Quilt Metaphor and Componentization

How Do We Build Complex Things?

Lots of Labour

How Do We Build Complex Things II?

But as we get bigger too much for one mind ...

Divide and Conquer: Componentization

Break data down into chunks (packages) that can be individually managed

Need to Put Humpty-Dumpty Back Together Again

Opennness is Essential

If we don't want humpty to remain broken

The 'Quilt' of Data

Libraries

Lots of Data (Catalogues) and Lots of Content

Own rights in catalogues but not usually in content

Ranganathan 5 Rules

1. Books are for use.
2. Every reader his [or her] book.
3. Every book its reader.
4. Save the time of the User.
5. The library is a growing organism.

Openness is Important to Every One of These

So Much One Can Do with Catalogues Alone

Just looks at rules 2-4!

Conclusion

The Digital Revolution makes so much Possible

Large Scale Knowledge Recombination Requires Openness

Thank-you

Rufus Pollock
rp240@cam.ac.uk and rufus.pollock@okfn.org