Last Byte: Opening Up to Open Library

Open Library (openlibrary.org) is being developed as a partnership between the Internet Archive and Open Content Alliance (OCA) to create a free, global online catalog and library. In their view, the best way to represent books and their metadata online is to create a web page for every book.

These pages then combine the data found in traditional library catalog and publisher ONIX records with user-generated reviews, references, and discussions. For digitized public domain books available from OCA, an ebook interface is included directly on the site. For those books unavailable in full text, links to buy, borrow, or download are also included. And to round out its all-encompassing goal of total descriptive content, Open Library plans to create subject and author pages as well. Once collected, this information will be updatable and editable by users.

One of the most interesting things about Open Library is the ideal on which it is based. Though only a demo version in its current state, Open Library aims to be a “product of the people: letting them create and curate its catalog, contribute to its content, participate in its governance, and have full, free access to its data.”

Many library and technology bloggers have commented that the Open Library interface and page-turning technology for navigating individual books is superior to that of Google Book Search and therefore could be a model of what the true next-generation catalog might look like. But Open Library’s greatest contribution may well be the friendly challenge it presents to the library world. Open Library has the potential to shape the online presentation of library content and push the bounds of how libraries interact with users on the web. Open Library assumes users want to add their own voices to a record and trusts them with it’s wiki-like editing interface.

Rather than being intimidated by this challenge, libraries should embrace Open Library, becoming active development partners and users. If Open Library gains popularity, web searches for a particular title will result not in a page from an online bookstore but rather that book’s entry in Open Library, providing users with links back to libraries where the book is available. This could improve circulation statistics and help researchers find unique, out-of-print materials.

But this can only happen if the information in Open Library is reliable and of good quality. Librarians can work to ensure this by creating and maintaining book, author, and subject metadata. As development partners, librarians should provide the project with feedback on the interface and functionality so Open Library meets user needs and leverages existing services that libraries furnish. Libraries should also consider how Open Library can be used to enhance these offerings, or implement new patron services.

Open Library needs assistance developing algorithms for merging data from different sources and working with enormous data sets. Aside from coding efforts, librarians can contribute to this process by examining Open Library records and noting places where the merge algorithms have gone wrong. Libraries can also assist by scanning public domain books and making them available via Open Library. One way of doing this is by joining OCA’s digitization effort rather than other book digitization projects such as the Google Books Library Project, which restricts how digitized books may be used.

Although Open Library is in its infancy, the project has ambitious plans, many of which are outlined in a development document called “The State of the [User Interface]” (demo.openlibrary.org/dev/docs/ui). Some of the features described are already in place, while others are under construction. Now is the time for libraries to consider seriously the functionality that Open Library is building, as this project is likely to set the bar very high for future online library interfaces.

For more info on Open Library, listen to the first Library 2.0 Gang podcast at www.libraryjournal.com/LibraryGang