Why not talk to some of the libraries that are included in the original GLMC CD-ROM set and find out their thought process about this utilization of their records?  At the vendor areas of various genealogy conference, I have talked to the person who produces this product, and I do know that he gets permission from the libraries involved to use their records rather than just taking them without permission, so I don't think he has a conscience problem. 

It might also be interesting to talk to some of the major genealogical libraries that *aren't* included in the original CD, to see if he approached them and if they decided not to cooperate, and if so, why?

I know that ownership of catalog records is a tricky question. Several years ago, OCLC announced that they were copyrighting their database, and there was quite an outcry from the people who contribute cataloging.

From a genealogist's point of view, when I write and talk about doing research, I emphasize the importance of finding out what research has already been done (and then verifying what is found in primary sources, when possible!), and suggest the use of catalogs of major genealogy libraries to identify materials relating to researchers' ancestors and ancestral locations. The Genealogical Library Master Catalog allows researchers to search materials in several libraries at once, thus saving the time of searching 17 or so libraries (plus whatever ones he is now adding) separately.




Christine Crawford-Oppenheimer
Special Collections Librarian/Archivist

Culinary Institute of America
1946 Campus Drive
Hyde Park, NY  12538
(845) 451-1757
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>>> "Lucas, Lydia" <[log in to unmask]> 12/13/01 01:09PM >>>
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?***

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