[WEB4LIB] Use of DDC in web displays

[Richard Wiggins]

Wow.  Keeping intellectual property claims from stifling Web innovation is one of Tim Berners-Lee's crusade items.  No doubt OCLC feels they are just protecting a valid IP claim.  (What's that old saying?  "We may be not-for-profit, but we're also not for loss.")  Have their been lawsuits over this issue?

Do a Google search on "Dewey" and "system" and you get a hit list chock full of guides explaining Dewey, in the US and abroad. I wonder how many are also candidates for such letters?

Are you purusing this in other forums?  A good place might be  the CNI Copyright list at http://www.cni.org/Hforums/cni-copyright.  Seems like the W3 Consortium and ALA might have some relevant activities that'd want to be aware of this...

Good luck....

/rich

------Original Message------
From: "Jerry Kuntz " <jkuntz at ansernet.rcls.org>
To: Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at webjunction.org>
Sent: December 22, 2000 9:27:26 PM GMT
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Use of DDC in web displays


On our KidsClick! main page (http://www.kidsclick.org), we have a link towards the bottom that leads to an alternate image of the main page labeled "What does this page look like through a Librarian's Eyes?",
(http://www.kidsclick.org/dewey.html)
This was presented more in a spirit of play than as a serious navigational device, although we've heard of people using that way.

Yesterday I received a very pleasantly written license notice from OCLC Forest Press; the stern part, however, noted:

"Regarding KidsClick's current use of Dewey, our standard licensing policy requires libraries who wish to use the DDC Summaries (the first three levels of the DDC, e.g., 500 Science, 510 Mathematics, 513 Arithmetic) on their Web site to be current subscribers to an electronic version of the DDC, either Dewey for Windows or WebDewey in CORC. We also require that such display of Dewey numbers and captions reflect the latest edition of the DDC, and carry notice of our copyrights and trademarks."

We're prepared to do the right thing, but I just wonder how this claim applies to our site and not to web-based catalogs that include Dewey call number displays and search capabilities. Anyone have a clue what the legal distinction would be?

--
Jerry Kuntz
Electronic Resources Consultant
Ramapo Catskill Library System
jkuntz at rcls.org
--
Richard Wiggins
Consulting, Writing & Training on Internet Topics
www.netfact.com/rww         wiggins at mail.com
517-349-6919 (home office)  517-353-4955 (work)  
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