The Web 2.0 environment provides the opportunity for innovative use of freely available datasets and, not least in the UK, there is increasing interest from Government in making information created by public sector organisations more widely available for re-use, in order to generate greater economic benefit, social gain and improvements to public services.
These developments are creating a complex landscape for the creation and use of the traditional bibliographical data:
In 2008, the Library of Congress Working Group on the future of bibliographic control issued their On the Record report which indicated that cataloguing activity must be shared more broadly and equitably among all libraries and followed this with the announcement in January this year, of its investigation into the creation and distribution of bibliographic data in U.S. and Canadian libraries.
This year also, LibLime announced an open source web based cataloguing tool called biblios.net and proposes that the records catalogued using it will go into 'The World's largest database of freely licensed library records'.
However, the recent OCLC announcement of its new policy for re-use of bibliographic records and the subsequent withdrawal of this policy is an example of the complexity of the current situation regarding the management and best use of catalogue data. It is not surprising therefore that the JISC is now also interested in this environment and is planning an investigation into the Sharing and re-use of library catalogue records: guidance on legal issues in the web environment.
Against this background the RIN report: Creating Catalogues: bibliographic records in a networked world, is a very timely overview of the whole process of bibliographic record production for printed and electronic books, and for scholarly journals and journal articles.
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