Lydia, I think the key word is "reproduce." Sure he can copy them, use them, take information from them, etc. I do NOT think he can simply reproduce the catalog record images and publish them without some agreement from you. Someone correct me if I am wrong. Steve Fisher University of Denver On Thu, 13 Dec 2001, Lucas, Lydia wrote: > Here's an interesting question that's come down from our Reference > Department: > > ***The requestor would like to select some bibliographic records from our > online catalog and reproduce them in a union catalog of genealogical books > and manuscripts. He could possibly download quite a few - in 1999 he > published the Genealogical Library Master Catalog with 300,000 bibliographic > records on 3 CD-ROMs, which was picked by Library Journal as one of the best > 10 CD-ROMs for that year. Maybe his conscience is bothering him? I don't > know that we can stop him, but I do wonder who owns our records?*** > > Seems to me that, by being publicly available, our catalog records are, in a > sense, in the public domain, and that downloading them is just the modern > substitute for transcribing the information by hand (which anyone would be > perfectly free to do). The intended product being a union catalog, the > matter of proper credit would not seem to be an issue, and an explicit > blessing of this use could also be accompanied by an explicit request not to > alter any data. > > I would be interested in others' perspectives. > > Lydia Lucas > Head, Processing Department > Minnesota Historical Society > 345 Kellogg Boulevard West > St. Paul, MN 55102-1906 > ph (651) 297-5542 > fax (651) 296-9961 > e-mail: [log in to unmask] > > A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List! > > To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to [log in to unmask] > In body of message: SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname > *or*: UNSUB ARCHIVES > To post a message, send e-mail to [log in to unmask] > > Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at > http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html > > Problems? Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <[log in to unmask]> > A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List! To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to [log in to unmask] In body of message: SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname *or*: UNSUB ARCHIVES To post a message, send e-mail to [log in to unmask] Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html Problems? Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <[log in to unmask]>