1.3B Worldcat scrape and data science mini-competition
I looked into using Dewey Decimal for a hobby project.  OCLC has a <i>de facto</i> monopoly on it due to the Worldcat database.  They're a non-profit, but they're supported by having libraries pay a subscription fee for Worldcat.<p>Back when OCLC was founded, the idea that people would want to have a copy of a card catalog for personal use was laughable, so I'm sympathetic to the people that set up their funding model.  It's far cheaper for a library to subscribe to Worldcat than to hire a team to maintain such a database, so it created a win-win situation.<p>However, keeping the world's books' metadata a secret (and leaving control in the hands of a monopoly) is an anachronism.<p>It's well past the time when someone (such as an international coalition of Libraries of Congress) should figure out how to sustainably fund OCLC while also releasing their work into the public domain.