Yeah, at one point OCLC was actually being kind of litigious with trying to make sure their db was _not_ open. I think they got over that, at about when they realized nobody actually really wanted it so much anymore. But it's debatable whether it's "pretty open" at present.
LibraryThing was sort of another attempt, that sort of still exists.
It's just a really hard thing to do, that takes a lot of resources to do well, and nobody's managed to figure out a funding model.
I don't think "Just create an open access database anyone can edit, like wikipedia but data, and books" will work (and actually, [that's](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Books) been tried too), but you can try to start another project if you want.
There are a handful of projects with various business models and degrees of openness of data that have tried or are still trying to do this. For whatever reasons (and we can debate em), they haven't really taken off or been succesful. shrug.
LibraryThing was sort of another attempt, that sort of still exists.
It's just a really hard thing to do, that takes a lot of resources to do well, and nobody's managed to figure out a funding model.
I don't think "Just create an open access database anyone can edit, like wikipedia but data, and books" will work (and actually, [that's](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Books) been tried too), but you can try to start another project if you want.
There are a handful of projects with various business models and degrees of openness of data that have tried or are still trying to do this. For whatever reasons (and we can debate em), they haven't really taken off or been succesful. shrug.