04. Allow Physical Union Catalogue to publish data

A union catalogue publishes bibliographic records as open data on behalf of its contributing libraries.

Description

Activity - The supply under open license of bibliographic records from a union catalogue on behalf of its contributing libraries. The open licensing and the open supply of records are undertaken by the union catalogue service. Compare with the variant approaches of UC3 and UC5.
This use case differs from UC3 because it is about the union catalogue organizing open licensing whereas UC3 is about the source library initiating the licensing.

Part of use case: 04. Allow Physical Union Catalogue to publish data | Share your experience

Actors - Libraries, the union catalogue, third parties

Part of use case: 04. Allow Physical Union Catalogue to publish data | Share your experience

Data involved - Bibliographic records, perhaps containing holdings and use data

Part of use case: 04. Allow Physical Union Catalogue to publish data | Share your experience

Data flow - Bibliographic and holdings records are transferred from the member institutions to the central service, where they are imported in to the Union Catalogue. The service provider may undertake some enhancement and de-duplication activity, with the resulting union database being made available to third parties for exploitation.

Part of use case: 04. Allow Physical Union Catalogue to publish data | Share your experience

Does this require Open Data - Not necessary, but if the records are supplied under an open data license, the scope for exploitation by the Union Catalogue, contributing institutions, third parties and users will be unambiguous.

Part of use case: 04. Allow Physical Union Catalogue to publish data | Share your experience

Current Examples - North Rhine-Westphalia Union Catalogue (HBZ); this approach could be adopted by such as Copac and Suncat in the UK.

Part of use case: 04. Allow Physical Union Catalogue to publish data | Share your experience

Benefits

Institution - Supporting scholarship beyond the institution, without needing to invest in local systems and support; the records are supplied in the existing manner to the union catalogue service.

Part of use case: 04. Allow Physical Union Catalogue to publish data | Share your experience

Library Service - Something for nothing. Improved service to users including the possibility of value added services based on open use of records

Part of use case: 04. Allow Physical Union Catalogue to publish data | Share your experience

Researchers - Increasing flexibility and choice in accessing institutional services, as third parties construct services on the data

Part of use case: 04. Allow Physical Union Catalogue to publish data | Share your experience

Students - Increasing flexibility and choice in accessing institutional services, as third parties construct services on the data

Part of use case: 04. Allow Physical Union Catalogue to publish data | Share your experience

Replication - The bibliographic data extraction process will be of use for other services requiring conditional release of records. Appropriate generic licensing as opposed to a proprietary agreement with the service provider may open up other shared service or third party service opportunities.

Part of use case: 04. Allow Physical Union Catalogue to publish data | Share your experience

Case for not doing it - Participating libraries may prefer to retain control over the ways in which their data are disseminated to third parties. Those running the union catalogue may not wish to absorb liabilities from member libraries with respect to the provenance of data they contribute to the pool.

Part of use case: 04. Allow Physical Union Catalogue to publish data | Share your experience

Motivation

Principles - Improved access through discoverability of own resources and access to resources held by partner institutions. Making bibliographic data open for re-use increases those opportunities both within and beyond the Union Catalogue service.

Part of use case: 04. Allow Physical Union Catalogue to publish data | Share your experience

Costs - Reduces the costs for providers and consumers; rather than dealing with individual member libraries, the license and supply relationship is with the union catalogue provider.

Part of use case: 04. Allow Physical Union Catalogue to publish data | Share your experience

Services - By making data available in ways that users prefer, usage and satisfaction may rise.

Part of use case: 04. Allow Physical Union Catalogue to publish data | Share your experience

Rationale for not doing it - Individual institutions may prefer to retain a degree of control over the ways in which their data are exposed to third parties. The union catalogue may not wish to absorb poorly understood liabilities on behalf of contributing libraries.

Part of use case: 04. Allow Physical Union Catalogue to publish data | Share your experience

Consequences of doing it as Open Data

What will happen? - (1) The centralised union catalogue will take on aspects of infrastructure, cost and possibly risk regarding the publication of Open Bibliographic data; (2) Staff and students will have the opportunity to access an existing library service in a different way; (3) Additional discovery channels will add value to the user experience and may increase demand on some areas of the local collection, whilst displacing demand from other areas; (4) Presence in a centralised union catalogue will increase visibility of library data to a wider audience.

Part of use case: 04. Allow Physical Union Catalogue to publish data | Share your experience

Potential Risks - (1) Loss of control over institutional data; (2) Damage to institutional reputation through provision of substandard product by a third party [see also UC3, UC5, UC16, UC17]; (3) The originator of elements of the bibliographic records challenges release as open data [see also UC1, UC2, UC3, UC5, UC6, UC7, UC15, UC16, UC17]; (4) Increased visibility of collection leads to demand beyond local resources ability to supply [see also UC3, UC5, UC6, UC7, UC9, UC13, UC16, UC17].

Part of use case: 04. Allow Physical Union Catalogue to publish data | Share your experience

Potential Opportunities - (1) Development of innovative / compelling third party services based on open data; (2) Shift to outsourced cataloguing and OPAC services [see also UC3, UC5, UC9, UC11]; (3) Increased use of library collection by internal and external users through improved discovery services [see also UC3, UC5, UC6, UC7, UC9, UC13, UC16, UC17]; (4) Sufficiently large Centralised Union Catalogues to provide ‘web–scale’ opportunities [see also UC3, UC5]; (5) Publication of a mass of data through central point may help manage risk of challenge from originator of elements of the bibliographic records

Part of use case: 04. Allow Physical Union Catalogue to publish data | Share your experience

Consequences of not doing it? - None that are significant.

Part of use case: 04. Allow Physical Union Catalogue to publish data | Share your experience

Rights and Licensing Issues

Rights and licensing issues - This use case requires the explicit transfer of records to a third party, and will typically be governed by some form of contractual relationship. Whether that transfer is classed as ‘use’ or ‘supply’ will depend upon the nature of the relationship between the organizations involved. See http://www.jisclegal.ac.uk/Projects/ TransferandUseofBibliographicRecords.aspx.

Part of use case: 04. Allow Physical Union Catalogue to publish data | Share your experience

Practicalities

Data exchange formatting - Data are presumably provided to the union catalogue using some variant of MARC [see UC3], with the union catalogue service taking on any requirement to reformat for downstream reuse.

Part of use case: 04. Allow Physical Union Catalogue to publish data | Share your experience

Lifecycle implications - As institutions are simply granting a set of additional permissions to a union catalogue service with which they are already associated, there are no additional hosting implications.

Part of use case: 04. Allow Physical Union Catalogue to publish data | Share your experience

Hosting requirements - As institutions are simply granting a set of additional permissions to a union catalogue service with which they are already associated, there are no additional systems implications.

Part of use case: 04. Allow Physical Union Catalogue to publish data | Share your experience

Existing systems impact - As institutions are simply granting a set of additional permissions to a union catalogue service with which they are already associated, there are no additional lifecycle implications.

Part of use case: 04. Allow Physical Union Catalogue to publish data | Share your experience

Skills demands - As institutions are simply granting a set of additional permissions to a union catalogue service with which they are already associated, there are no additional staffing implications.

Part of use case: 04. Allow Physical Union Catalogue to publish data | Share your experience

Costs

Setup - As institutions are simply granting a set of additional permissions to a union catalogue service with which they are already associated, there are unlikely to be additional setup costs. Depending upon the nature of the data to be shared, and the form of any existing contractual relationship, there may be a need for some legal costs.

Part of use case: 04. Allow Physical Union Catalogue to publish data | Share your experience

Ongoing - As institutions are simply granting a set of additional permissions to a union catalogue service with which they are already associated, there are no additional ongoing costs.

Part of use case: 04. Allow Physical Union Catalogue to publish data | Share your experience

Cost of doing nothing - None

Part of use case: 04. Allow Physical Union Catalogue to publish data | Share your experience