Daniel,

 I knew that you meant no disrespect to catalogers and the work they do.
After all, if we are just talking about taking known information and
reorganizing it, isn't that sort of what any non-fiction author does? I
think the issue is the USE made of their work. It may be in the public
domain as a tool to locate material, but not to make an exact duplicate of
and sell that duplicate for profit. To go back to the author analogy, a
work of non-fiction ( or fiction for that matter ) is available to the
public to purchase, read, use for class, underline, or even tear up and
shred. But you certainly could not scan or photocopy the work and bind it
up and sell it ( unless of course the particular work was old enough to be
in the public domain ) without permission.

Steve in Denver

On Fri, 14 Dec 2001 [log in to unmask] wrote:

> Due to more than one person pointing this out to me, let me clarify a
> statement I made in an earlier email.  I had no intention of denigrating the
> work done by catalogers; I have a great deal of respect for the work they
> do, and I accept fully that I have no idea how it's done.
>
> My point was in response to the original question; while certain aspects of
> cataloging are (I now understand) subject to individual interpretation, I
> still maintain that much of the information about the book is,
> THEORETICALLY, available to anyone willing to take the time to copy it down
> and therefore not protected or privately owned.
>
> Much in the same way that the times of sunrise and sunset are not, per se,
> privately owned and could, given the right equipment, be determined by
> anyone, I would maintain that certain basic information about a book could
> be gathered by any Joe Shmoe off the street.  (Sunrise & sunset are
> important times for the Jewish calendar, hence my choice of example.  If you
> were wondering.)
>
> Mr. Shmoe's work would probably be wrong and riddled with errors, but
> nonetheless the information is out there.  If the original request was over
> ownership of the information, it seems to me the information is closer to
> public domain than private.  Despite that, there is what the corporate world
> refers to as "value-added"; the work the highly intelligent and
> magnificently talented (how thick can I lay it on? :) ) catalogers do to
> make the information useable creates a new product, which is the aggregate
> collection of compiled catalog records.
>
> The latter is, in my opinion, property of the creator and could,
> conceivably, be a saleable product.  I personally would probably try & buy a
> compilation of records done by a professional since my time and energy are
> better used for other things.  I don't question the effort or skill required
> for cataloging, only whether it stands as a private creation in the way that
> a book or article is.
>
> Fire back at will.
>
> DS
>
> ______________________________________
> Daniel Sokolow, Archives Coordinator
> David Taylor Archives
> North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System
> 155 Community Drive
> Great Neck, NY 11021
> mailto:[log in to unmask]
>
>
>

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