The Basics
This page contains some helpful background information, including:
It is important to understand exactly what you are doing with your bibliographic records within the context of the restrictions placed on these activities to ensure that:
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use of base data, datasets and databases is lawful;
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contractual obligations to third parties are honoured;
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your rights are protected as far as appropriate and possible;
- the risks to your institution, its partners and funding bodies are minimised;
- rights can be exploited in the future;
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sustainability strategies and other opportunities can be pursued.
Contractual terms which describe what you may want to do with the bibliographic records you receive are complex, unstandardised and difficult to interpret. Starting afresh, the record flows can be categorised simply as use, make available and supply (where transfer incorporates both make available and supply). You can use this terminology to represent your activities, and this will help you have in clearly communicating your requirements to suppliers.
The distinction between make available and supply is one of how "active" the supplier is, and how well defined the relationship between supplier and receiver is. Make available may be opening your OPAC to the internet, whereas supply may be transferring your records to a union catalogue (see the links above for more detail).
These terms are represented in the diagram below (where Organisation B is your institution, and Organisation A and Organisation C are other parties such as Talis and RLUK).
The activities can be illustrated with a number of specific use cases.
Records generated by a library or supplied by a third party may be protected by both copyright and database rights. Where records are received from other parties, activities may also be subject to specific licensing agreements (contracts). Under UK law, it is possible that the provisions of a contract can over-ride copyright and in particular the exceptions to copyright (although overriding the exceptions to the database right is more difficult).
Find out more about the legal constraints on transfer and use of bibliographic records.
There is much uncertainty about what institutions are entitled to do with the bibliographic records they receive. There is not an easy answer to this complex problem, as the major restrictions result from the contracts that libraries have with suppliers, rather than IPR, and there is no standard contract (even for an individual supplier).
Find out more about libraries' and suppliers' current views.
The glossary outlines key terms and their definitions which are likely to be encountered within the context of bibliographic records and in particular, contractual transactions relating to the use, supply and making available of these records.