Cooperation on public domain projects

[Tom Chance <tom AT acrewoods.net>]

Ahoy,

Thanks to everyone who has subscribed so far. I feel like I should kick a 
conversation off, so here goes.


First of all, I started a wiki page which contains a list of some public 
domain projects. Could you all please add any that are missing:
http://wiki.icommons.org/index.php/Public_Domain

Over the next few months it would be nice to expand that page so it becomes a 
good resource. Maybe people could also leave requests for information.


Second, we're all aware (and excited to know) that there are lots of projects 
going on relating to the public domain. Most are trying to digitise chunks of 
cultural works that are out of copyright, whilst others are trying to produce 
registries of all such works in their country. Some are planning to do 
both :-)

But why are we all working in isolation? It would make a lot of sense to 
share 
data, tools and so on. Rufus Pollock put together a proposal for a shared 
metadata database, which I will reproduce in full here. Comments would be 
wonderful!

Original:
http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/pdb-discuss/2006-July/000078.html


= Metadata Database =

A metadata database for cultural works (books/recordings/films etc) is a 
prerequisite for all kinds of activities from a database of public 
domain works to a mass digitization project such as Google Print.

At base this database models two types of objects (more if we include 
items such as Recordings and Films):

   Artist
     * name
     * dob
     * date of death
     * ...
   Work
     * title
     * creators (link to artists)
     * date created
     * ...
   [Recording]
   ...

== Desirable properties of such a metadata DB ==

1. **Persistent** identifiers for Artists and Works. That way one can 
have a single central registry which can then be *reused* by other 
projects via the identifiers (e.g. a public domain project and orphan 
work project could both reuse the same metadata db).

2. Data should be 'open' (see http://www.okfn.org/okd/) so that anyone 
can reuse and redistribute it (without this it will be much harder for 
different projects to agree to collaborate on a *central* database). One 
of the main benefits of the data being open is that it makes it easy for 
someone to 'branch' the database -- i.e. create their own version under 
their control. This might be useful if an organization had specific 
needs, for example needing to ensure the data was ultra reliable.

3. Versioned and community editable: this way one can enlist a community 
of volunteers to improve and add to the database. At the same time 
versioning means that contributions can be checked, audited and reverted.

== Collaboration ==

How could two different organizations collaborate with respect to such a 
database. There are several ways:

1. Share data. Both organizations could contribute their data into an 
open central repository (maintained by either of them or even by a third 
party)

2. Collaborate in developing the database itself (database structure, 
maintenance etc)

3. Collaborate on developing tools to utilize and interface with the 
database. For example one would like to have a web front end to the 
database by which members of the general community could edit and add 
information

With open data only the first option is essential to the collaboration 
process: it is entirely possible for two groups to share data but to 
build their own infrastructure and interfaces to that data.


Regards,
Tom

-- 
The task of critique is not to denounce the ideals, but to show their 
transformation into ideologies, and to challenge the ideology in the 
name of the betrayed ideal (Fromm – Beyond The Chains Of Illusion)