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Deutsch: Einige deutsche Bibliotheken veröffentlichen ihre Katalogdaten

Some German libraries, most of them from Cologne, announced at the beginning of the Leipzig Congress for Information and Library on 15 March 2010 that they would release 5.4 million bibliographic records under an open licence.

The University and Public Library of Cologne (USB), the Library of the Academy of Media Arts Cologne, the University Library of the University of Applied Science of Cologne and the the Library Centre of Rhineland-Palatinate in cooperation with the North Rhine-Westphalian Library Service Center are the first German libraries to implement the Open Access principles to their catalogue data, by releasing them under the Creative Commons Zero licence.

Rolf Thiele, deputy director of the USB Cologne, states: "Libraries appreciate the Open Access movement because they themselves feel obliged to provide access to knowledge without barriers. Providing this kind of access for bibliographic data, thus applying the idea of Open Access to their own products, has been disregarded until now. Up to this point, it was not possible to download library catalogues as a whole. This will now be possible. We are taking a first step towards a worldwide visibility of library holdings on the internet."

Silke Schomburg, deputy director of the North Rhine-Westphalian Library Service Center underlined that these "libraries are funded by the public. And what is publicly financed should be made available to the public without restrictions." She also points that the catalogue data of the libraries can enhance the Internet development, providing the example of the Wikipedia Germany and the usage of the German National Library data under an open licence.

The Regional Library Service Center is also in discussions with other public libraries in their network in an effort to be actively involved in the Semantic web.

The library of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) has already published its data under a public domain licence in January.

March 2010: Releasing catalogue data: Cologne-based libraries to pioneer Open Data practices (15.03.2010)
http://www.hbz-nrw.de/dokumentencenter/presse/pm/datenfreigabe_engl

Open Access: Libraries free catalog data (only in German, 15.03.2010)
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Open-Access-Bibliotheken-geben-...

Leipzig Congress for Information and Library (only in German)
http://www.bid-kongress2010.de/

North Rhine-Westphalian Library Service Centre : Linked Open Data
http://www.hbz-nrw.de/projekte/linked_open_data/english_version/