British Library Readers Group

Public Domain Works, an open registry of artistic works in the public domain, is going to join up with the Open Library.

The project, which is a joint initiative of the Open Knowledge Foundation, the Open Rights Group and Free Culture UK, has data representing thousands of artists and works. This data will be uploaded to the Open Library, and will be accessible via web services which will show which works are out of copyright in different jurisdictions.

Public Domain Works http://www.publicdomainworks.net
The Open Library http://demo.openlibrary.org/

There have been a couple of interesting stories on blogs recently about the BL's practice of universally copyrighting all the documents it holds.

The author of a blog from Unilever Cambridge Centre for Molecular Informatics relates an incident where a colleague was forbidden from copying an 85-year-old document obtained via inter-library loan.

See:
http://wwmm.ch.cam.ac.uk/blogs/murrayrust/?p=543
http://wwmm.ch.cam.ac.uk/blogs/murrayrust/?p=542

Apparently any request for an inter library loan is only granted if you agree to the BL’s very sweeping copyright terms, which include not being able to:

a) copy what they send
b) give the copy to anyone else
c) have it translated (even if it’s in Transylvanian)
d) acquire it in digital form.

The author makes a compelling analogy between the people's 'right to roam' and the much more restricted 'right to read'.

http://wwmm.ch.cam.ac.uk/blogs/murrayrust/?p=531

Surely this can't be right? It's the library's role to help people access information not prevent them?

Quite a number of readers have written to say that 'yes' we should be campaigning against the sale of the land behind the British Library. We are now trying to determine exactly what is happening with the sale. Who owns the land? If the land is sold who will benefit from the proceeds - the British Library or the Department for Culture, Media and Sport? What is the BL management's position on the sale?

Today I contacted Phil Spence, the BL's Director of Operations and Services who said that the sale isn't something for readers to worry about. There are three parcels of land behind the BL and the two for sale are owned by the DCMS. Mr Spence said that the sale is contingent upon a land swap whereby the BL swaps part of the land it owns (that is unsuitable for a BL extension) for part of the DCMS land (that is suitable for an extension). Apparently there are already plans afoot for this future extension but the person who knows about this is on holiday and not back until next week.

The only public information available on the land sale is to be found on this website:
http://www.somerstownatstpancras.com/index2.html

If you download the brochure the details of the land swap are found on page 9.

The BL management has offered to let a couple of readers attend the strategic planning committee which is presumable where such plans are discussed, so if anyone is particularly interested in this issue please contact us. In the meantime, could readers have a look at the documents to see if, indeed, there is nothing for us to worry about.

An article posted in the News forum yesterday made me wonder yet again at the 'can't do' attitude so endemic in this country.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6924022.stm

Basically some people want to create an Open Library comprising the world's biggest listing of books. It's not a library per se because there aren't any actual books, but you'll at least know of their existence. At the moment the most comprehensive catalogue of books is on Amazon. The developers of the Open Library project want to do for books what Wikipedia did for encyclopedias. By compiling all the world's library catalogues into one giant catalogue they will create the largest listing of books ever published.

The first nay-saying came from the British Library. Stephen Bury, the head of European and American Collections, isn't at all keen to allow ordinary people to edit library catalogues themselves.

"I think there's a need for balance and some degree of control. You might get people maliciously changing things."

This is an elitist sort of attitude that one would hope is not shared by the rest of the Library managers.

It is well known that the BL's online catalogue is pretty poor so instead of fretting about imaginary fears, why not consider the many improvements that might be made by open sourcing the catalogue?

The land behind the British Library is for sale. Few readers seem aware of this but there ought to be some discussion about this decision as it removes forever the possibility of the BL's expansion. It's my understanding that originally this land was earmarked for just such an expansion.

Given the current overcrowding of the existing space is it right to sell off this land to private developers? Should we be campaigning about this? Please let me know. If we do want to campaign then we need to get organised ASAP as hundreds of developers have already expressed their interest in purchasing the land.

You can read about this issue in the 'News' Forum. See:
http://www.britishlibraryforum.org/node/34
and
http://www.britishlibraryforum.org/node/39