{"id":1319,"date":"2012-04-27T15:09:24","date_gmt":"2012-04-27T19:09:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/?p=1319"},"modified":"2012-04-27T15:09:24","modified_gmt":"2012-04-27T19:09:24","slug":"the-new-harvard-library-open-metadata-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/2012\/04\/27\/the-new-harvard-library-open-metadata-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"The new Harvard Library open metadata policy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n
\"\u201cOld<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u201cOld Books\u201d
\nphoto<\/a> by flickr user Iguana Joe<\/a>, used by permission (CC-by-nc<\/a>)<\/span><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Earlier this week, the Harvard Library announced<\/a> its new open metadata policy<\/a>, which was approved by the Library Board<\/a> earlier this year, along with an initial two metadata releases. The policy<\/a> is\u00a0straightforward:<\/p>\n

The Harvard Library provides open access to library metadata, subject to legal and privacy factors. In particular, the Library makes available its own catalog metadata under appropriate broad use licenses. The Library Board is responsible for interpreting this policy, resolving disputes concerning its interpretation and application, and modifying it as necessary.<\/p>\n

The first releases under the policy include the metadata in the DASH repository<\/a>. Though this metadata has been available through open APIs<\/a> since early in the repository’s history, the open metadata policy makes clear the open licensing terms that the data is provided under.<\/p>\n

The release of a huge percentage of the Harvard Library’s bibliographic metadata for its holdings is likely to have much bigger impact. We’ve provided 12 million records \u2014 the vast majority of Harvard’s\u00a0bibliographic\u00a0data \u2014 describing Harvard’s library holdings in MARC<\/a> format under a CC0 license that requests adherence to a set of community norms<\/a> that I think are quite reasonable, primarily calling for attribution to Harvard and our major partners in the release, OCLC<\/a> and the Library of Congress<\/a>.<\/p>\n

OCLC in\u00a0particular\u00a0has praised the effort<\/a>, saying it\u00a0\u201cfurthers [Harvard’s] mandate from their Library Board and Faculty to make as much of their metadata as possible available through open access in order to support learning and research, to disseminate knowledge and to foster innovation and aligns with the very public and established commitment that Harvard has made to open access for scholarly communication. I\u2019m pleased to say that they worked with OCLC as they thought about the terms under which the release would be made.\u201d\u00a0We’ve gotten nice coverage from the New York Times<\/a>,\u00a0Library Journal<\/a>, and\u00a0Boing Boing<\/a>\u00a0as well.<\/p>\n

Many people have asked what we expect people to do with the data. Personally, I have no idea, and that’s the point. I’ve seen over and over that when data is made openly available with the fewest impediments \u2014 legal and technical \u2014 people are incredibly creative about finding innovative uses for the data that we never could have predicted. Already, we’re seeing people picking up the data, exploring it, and building on it.<\/p>\n