Presentation delivered to LIR Annual seminar, Dublin, 27th March 2009. 2009-03-27.

1. Open Data Licensing:
Trojan horse or sunken treasure?
Eoin McCarney & Caleb Derven
UCD Library
UCD Library Leabharlann UCD

2. http://www.flickr.com/photos/nathanf/2315489782/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gogap/253649673/

3. Overview
• What is open data?
• The Open Data Commons Public Domain
Dedication & Licence
• What does it cover?
• Who is using the licence?
• What does it mean for library systems?
• Varieties of openness
• Systems context & issues
• Opening other kinds of library data
• Is it worth it?

4. What is Open Data?
• “A philosophy and practice requiring that certain
data are freely available to everyone, without
restrictions from copyright, or other mechanisms
of control”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_data
• "A piece of knowledge is open if you are free to
use, reuse, and redistribute it“.
http://opendefinition.org/

5. The Licence
• Open Data Commons – Public Domain Dedication &
Licence
• Created October 2007 by Jordan Hatcher & Dr. Charlotte
Waelde
• Based on Talis Community License; funded by Talis
• Similar to GNU general public license for open source
software
• Open Data Commons & Open Knowledge Foundation
Project

6. The License
“The Open Data Commons Public Domain Dedication
& Licence is a document intended to allow you to
freely share, modify, and use this work for any
purpose and without any restrictions.
This licence is intended for use on databases or
their contents (”data”), either together or
individually”
http://www.opendatacommons.org/licenses/pddl/1.0/

7. What does it cover?
• Copyright & database rights
- Dedicate rights to the public domain
or
- Waive rights
or
- License rights

10. What does it mean for library
systems?
• Library as a producer
• Library as a consumer
• "It won’t allow you to require anyone to do
anything if they use your data, like attribute it or
re-distribute it freely. But it will mean that your
data is forever free, and anybody who wants to
who gets your data can do whatever they like
with it, including redistribute it. And that is what
is needed."
(http://bibwild.wordpress.com/2008/11/24/creative-
commons-is-not-appropriate-for-data/)

11. http://www.flickr.com/photos/photosan0/2682021566/

12. Varieties of Openness
• Open source software
• Open standards
• Open access
• Open data

13. The Systems Context for Open Data
• Libraries expose and ingest data through
o Z39.50
o Search Retrieval via URL (SRU)
o OAI-PMH

14. Open Data and Systems - The High
Level Issues
• Longevity – data vs. platform
• Software as a service - how do you retrieve your
data?
• Community-maintained data sets and standards

15. Open Data and Systems - On-the-
ground Issues
• Flexible infrastructures
• Flexible protocols
• Flexible communication standards

16. Opening Other Kinds of Library Data
• Anonymised circulation data (Huddersfield)
• Library Stock Usage Data (JISC TILE Project)
• Library Of Congress – Authority & Subject Files
available via web services.

17. Open Data - Is it Worth It?
Risks:
• No going back with ODC PDDL
• Systems need to be leveraged
• Greater need for QA
• Information specialist vs. interested amateur
Benefits:
• Makes data available to all
• Formalises collaborative ethos of libraries
• Value for money