Brainstorming: Key Issues

This is my kick-off for brainstorming and key issues. I'd suggest that  
for the first go-round we not worry about structure or levels of  
granularity but just throw out ideas. I'll do my best to keep track  
and we can then come back and have a more coordinated discussion.

Karen's list:

1) Community agreement and leadership
   There are many in the community who are either not interested in  
LLD, don't know about LLD, or who are actually opposed to LLD. At the  
moment, there are no centers of leadership to facilitate such a major  
change to library thinking about its data (although IFLA is probably  
the most active).

2) Funding
   It is still quite difficult to convince potential funders that this  
is an important area to be working in. This is the "chicken/egg"  
problem, that without something to show funders, you can't get funding.

3) Legacy data
   The library world has an enormous cache of data that is somewhat  
standardized but uses an antiquated concept of data and data modeling.  
Transformation of this data will take coordination (since libraries  
share data and systems for data creation). But before it can be  
transformed it needs to be analyzed and there must be a plan for  
converting it to linked data. (There is a need for library systems to  
be part of this change, and that is very complex.)

4) Openness and rights issues
   While linked data can be used in an enterprise system, the value  
for libraries is to encourage open use of bibliographic data.  
Institutions that "own" bibliographic data may be under constraints,  
legal or otherwise, that do not allow them to let their data be used  
openly. We need to overcome this out-dated concept of data ownership.

5) Standards
   Libraries need to take advantage of the economies of scale that  
data sharing afford. This means that libraries will need to apply  
standards to their data for use within libraries and library systems.

You can comment on these and/or post your own. Don't think about it  
too hard -- let's get as many issues on the table as we can! (I did 5  
- you can do any number you wish.)

kc

-- 
Karen Coyle
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet

Received on Thursday, 17 February 2011 17:27:19 UTC