Info Pros React to OCLC's Lawsuit Against Clarivate
Brandi Scardilli, writing in Information Today's NewsBreaks, analyzed some of the tweets that have surfaced regarding the legal action OCLC has taken against Clarivate, including comments from European librarians. Is this a feud between monopolies and is this an opportunity to advocate for open cataloging metadata?
Info Pros React to OCLC's Lawsuit Against Clarivate
Responses to the OCLC-Clarivate lawsuit filed June 13 boil down to one sentiment: This may not necessarily be a good development for—or have a beneficial outcome for—libraries. Opinions vary on how problematic OCLC’s cataloging actually is and how monopolistic Clarivate is. Some people have suggested the development of library-led, open source cataloging that doesn’t involve either company.COMPETITION/COOPERATION
Jeroen Bosman, scholarly communication specialist and faculty liaison for the Faculty of Geosciences at Utrecht University Library, tweeted that OCLC is suing Clarivate “over ‘stealing’ its bibliographic metadata records to build MetaDoor, a prospective Worldcat competitor. So libraries & academia expect open metadata from publishers but keep their own closed?” He commented, “Would love to see a webinar on how to marry the goal of maintaining not-for-profit library services with the goal of having an open ecosystem of metadata of academic output.”
The remainder of this Information Today Newsbreaks article is here.