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Bib records
Aren't individual catalogue records an act of creation? Diverse and important decisions (that determine forever the positioning of a work with respect to the body of knowledge) are made by cataloguers every step of the way, even though they are coded into a highly structured format (who owns MARC?). If so, then to whom do those records belong? The cataloguers, or... In the USA, records created at the Library of Congress would be subject to Section 105 of the Copyright Act (works done by government employees on government time) and therefore not subject to copyright. Who owns records created by state employees (at, say, the University of California)? Who owns records created at a private school (at, say Yale)? I would assume that in this case, the records are "works for hire" and the property of the University Library. Who owns aggregations of records? Can OCLC or any other group really copyright these and in so doing, are they usurping the rights of owners of the assorted records in the database which they have NOT created? What have our institutions done to give OCLC the right to copyright the database? Do we have to do anything to enable this? Is there any value in an individual cataloging record or is their value only in lots of them together (the right ones)? These questions are almost like "how many angels on the head of a pin?" but rather fascinating for all that. I don't know if they belong on this list, but let's let in a few more messages on this topic. There is a relationship here to (licensed) commercial databases, after all. Ann Okerson, Co-Moderator of Liblicense-l Associate University Librarian Yale University Ann.Okerson@yale.edu
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