[Koha] Z39.50 and MARC (was Re: Questions about Koha)

[Stephen Hedges]

OK, now Michael has gone and pushed one of my buttons!  Brace yourselves
for a rant!

MARC records do not belong to OCLC.  They are not copyrighted by OCLC. 
They are not the intellectual property of OCLC.  Why?  Because OCLC did
not create them -- _librarians_ did!  So they belong to librarians. 
OCLC's attempted restrictions on the use of MARC records are just a
corporate bluff!

Z39.50 is the library-world's early (and somewhat clunky) version of
Napster-style file sharing.  Until there's something better out there for
us to share our cataloging work with one another, we should not be ashamed
to use Z39.50.  And we should never let some company dictate to us from
their multi-story buildings in Dublin, Ohio what we can do with our MARC
records.

(Just for the record, I have some respected friends who work for OCLC, and
the company does some good things.  But fostering the mind-set that we
can't share our work with one another is not one of them.)

Stephen

Michael Watson said:
> The other problem with Z39.50 is that I know that some libraries consider
> it
> very poor form to do Z39.50 "record nabbing", since they may have had to
> pay
> for those MARC records from a source such as OCLC. I know that in the
> consortium to which our library belongs, the operational rules do specify
> that no member library will use Z39.50 to get catalog records without
> permission from the "target" library.
>   -----Original Message-----
>   From: koha-admin at lists.katipo.co.nz
> [mailto:koha-admin at lists.katipo.co.nz]On Behalf Of BWS Johnson
>   Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2004 6:23 AM
>   To: koha at lists.katipo.co.nz
>   Subject: Re: Re: [Koha] Re: Questions about Koha
>
>
>   Salvete!
>
>   I would once again like to stress that Z39.50 is a nice place to visit,
> but I wouldn't want to live there. It's kind of like that old game show
> with
> the curtains. You really should look at the records you end up with, which
> to me means that you may as well find the one most suited to your needs by
> hand in the first place.
>
>   Point number 2 - since you're automating a rather small collection, I
> would certainly recommend Koha. I've entered about 2600 bibliographic
> records and about 1900 patron records. Phew! I have about 7,000
> bibliographic or so to go. I've been working at automating since about
> last
> February.
>
>   Point number 3 - Library of Congress stinks for records for Kid's Stuff.
> I
> use Access Pennsylvania or Maine Infonet or in a real pinch Ohio Link. All
> of these can be found on the Free MARC page brought to you by SKCLS.
>
>   http://skyways.lib.ks.us/sckls/sysserv/tutorials/marc/freemarc.html
>
>   If you type "Free MARC" into google, that will get you there, too. The
> great thing about that page is that they give you instructions on how to
> get
> the records themselves.
>
>   Watch for redundant tags with Access Pennsylvania. Doesn't happen often,
> but it does happen.
>
>   It is really, really worth it. Oooooh so much better than cards.
>
>   Brooke @ Hinsdale MA
>


-- 
Stephen Hedges
Skemotah Solutions, USA
www.skemotah.com  --  shedges at skemotah.com