Category Archives: open access

Public domain day 2010: Drawing up the lines

Posted on January 1, 2010 by John Mark Ockerbloom

As we celebrate the beginning of the New Year, we also mark Public Domain Day (a holiday I’ve been regularly celebrating on this blog.)  This is the day when a year’s worth of copyrights expire in many countries around the … Continue reading →

Posted in copyright, online books, open access | 2 Comments

Promoting access to the best literature of the past

Posted on October 26, 2009 by John Mark Ockerbloom

Last week saw widespread observance of Open Access Week 2009 .  The week primarily focused on opening access to current research and scholarship (though there’s also been a growing community working on opening access to teaching and learning content).  You … Continue reading →

Posted in online books, open access | 2 Comments

Google Book settlement: Alternatives and alterations

Posted on September 17, 2009 by John Mark Ockerbloom

In my previous post, I worried that the Google Books settlement might fall apart in the face of opposition from influential parties like the Copyright Office, and that such a collapse might deprive the public of meaningful access to millions … Continue reading →

Posted in copyright, online books, open access | 5 Comments

Google Books, and missing the opportunities you don’t see

Posted on September 15, 2009 by John Mark Ockerbloom

The Google Books settlement fairness hearing is still a few weeks away, but in the last few weeks the deal has been talked and shouted about with ever-higher volume.  Still, it wasn’t until the other day, in a House Judiciary … Continue reading →

Posted in copyright, online books, open access | 2 Comments

Why should reuse be hard?

Posted on August 31, 2009 by John Mark Ockerbloom

By far the most widely cited paper with my name on it is a 1995 paper on architectural mismatch.  The journal version of the paper was subtitled “Why reuse is so hard”.  It was a paper about failure, rather than … Continue reading →

Posted in architecture, open access, publishing | Comments Off on Why should reuse be hard?

Free Decimal Correspondence: Now with more detail and CC0 goodness

Posted on May 16, 2009 by John Mark Ockerbloom

I’ve just released a new version of the Free Decimal Correspondence (FDC).  FDC is a set of associations between numbers and subject terms that can be used as the basis for linear shelving or subject browsing of a simple library … Continue reading →

Posted in libraries, metadata, open access, repositories, sharing | Comments Off on Free Decimal Correspondence: Now with more detail and CC0 goodness

Will OCLC move to a service-oriented business model for bibliographic data?

Posted on May 15, 2009 by John Mark Ockerbloom

As you may recall, there’s been a fair bit of criticism (including some of my own) against OCLC’s proposed records use policy, which asserts OCLC’s rights over libraries’ cataloging in ways that would make it very difficult for libraries and … Continue reading →

Posted in architecture, libraries, metadata, open access, sharing | 3 Comments

What you’re asked to give away

Posted on May 8, 2009 by John Mark Ockerbloom

If you’ve published an article in an Elsevier journal, you might have missed an interesting aspect of the contract you signed with them to get published.  It goes something like this: I grant Elsevier the exclusive right to select and … Continue reading →

Posted in copyright, crimes and misdemeanors, open access, publishing, serials | 1 Comment

Do we need a “reader’s rights registry”?

Posted on May 5, 2009 by John Mark Ockerbloom

This spring’s Digital Library Federation forum, the last under DLF as an independent organization,  included a session for “lightning talks”, where speakers take 5 minutes or less to present an idea or make a demonstration.  Here are the remarks I … Continue reading →

Posted in censorship, copyright, metadata, online books, open access, reading, sharing | 3 Comments

The Google Books settlement: A symposium, and a call for library action

Posted on March 18, 2009 by John Mark Ockerbloom

Last Friday I went to a fascinating symposium at the Columbia Law School: “The Google Books Settlement: What Will it Mean for the Long Term?” The symposium included presentations by US copyright register Marybeth Peters, and antitrust expert Randal Picker … Continue reading →

Posted in libraries, metadata, online books, open access, reading, sharing | 2 Comments