Archivalia : Rubrik:English Corner

UK National Archives and the clima change

Wolf Thomas — 2009-12-06T13:03:00Z

"Projecting what the climate will be like several decades from now is no easy task. So British scientists are looking to the past for help. Christopher Werth reports.
Bill Radke: In a few days, world leaders will meet in Copenhagen to talk climate change. Trying to figure out what the climate will be like decades from now isn't easy. So for help, British scientists are looking to the past. Marketplace's Christopher Werth reports.
Christopher Werth: At the U.K.'s National Archives in London, Dennis Wheeler slowly flips through the yellowed pages of a logbook kept by one of Britain's most famous seafarers, the 18th century explorer Captain James Cook.
DENNIS WHEELER: "On a voyage around the world, performed in the year 1768, '69, '70, '71." OK. God, I hope he turned the gas off before he went.
But Wheeler is no historian. He's a climatologist at the University of Sunderland who's leading a project to digitize about 250 years worth of British Navy logbooks. Wheeler says sea captains like Cook kept detailed records of weather conditions: things like wind direction and air temperature. The logs are a wealth of information about what the climate was like before the Industrial Revolution. Wheeler says he gets one question from people all the time.
WHEELER: Why on earth look at the data of the past, because what we need to know is what it's going to be like in 50 or 100 year's time.
His answer has to do with computer models that climatologists use to predict future climate change. Those models can also be used to simulate what happened in the past, as a way to test if their projections are reliable. So now scientists will be able to compare their simulations of the 18th and 19th centuries to the actual weather data in the logbooks.
Rob Allan heads one of the largest historical databases on climate at the U.K.'s national weather service.
ROB ALLAN: It's one check to say, can your models reproduce what we are saying appears to have actually happened in the climate system? If you can do that, you can feel more confident about using those models to project into the future.
Allan says historical information about storms and floods can be added to the mix, allowing climatologists to better predict similar conditions going forward. And that's valuable to everyone from farmers to insurance companies.
WHEELER: So it's only, rather bizarrely, it's only by looking back that we can actually go forward.
Wheeler says there are 120,000 logbooks that date back before 1850, including books from the HMS Beagle, the ship that ferried Charles Darwin to the Galapagos. And once they're digitized, climatologists from all over the world can get their hands on them."
Link: http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/12/04/am-captains-logbooks/

Analysis of Book Smells

KlausGraf — 2009-12-04T17:01:00Z

A new testing method can rapidly determine the condition of old books and documents by analyzing the bouquet of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released by paper off-gassing. The technology promises to help conservators assess the condition of old works quickly, while not harming the documents.

http://news.discovery.com/history/old-books-paper-chemical-test.html

Please note that the correct name of the UCL researcher is Matija Strlič

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/sustainableheritage/strlic.html

Here is the link to an OA-paper of 2007:

http://mdpi.org/sensors/papers/s7123136.pdf

In September 2009 an toll access article was published on the "smell of old books":

Anal. Chem., 2009, 81 (20), pp 86178622
DOI: 10.1021/ac9016049
Publication Date (Web): September 17, 2009

Matija Strlič was so kind to answer my question whether the analysis could be used for datation or provenance research:

"Theoretically, both provenancing and dating should be possible, however, I doubt that a very accurate method could be developed on the basis of VOCs, unless the object was made using a material (glue, covers, ink, etc) with an identifiable and very specific VOC fingerprint."

Suber on "Open access and the Google book settlement"

KlausGraf — 2009-12-03T01:50:00Z

In his monthly newsletter Peter Suber discusses the implications of the amended Google Books Settlement for Open Access:

http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/12-02-09.htm

I have spoken on this topic at Konstanz on the OA conference as some will remember. My main interest was author-side OA via Google (like the Urheberrechtsbündnis).

For monographs there is one solution in the near future using that what Suber calls the "formal partner program". If I know the disadvantages of being a formal partner I will give a report as soon as possible.

Authors which are rights holders can send Google their books (or offprints) or PDFs. Because I thought it would be silly to scan already scanned books (which Google shows only as snippets in the library program) I did'nt register some weeks ago. Google told me that it isn't possible to use the library scans for the partner program. But negotiating with HathiTrust in the last days (I have the online rights for two of my books received from the publishers) on the second book I was told it would be better to make these books free via Google, and thus I am since yesterday Google partner and part of a not yet published pilot program. Google is working "with a small number of rights holders to allow them increase the viewable portion of their snippet view books". Thus I am waiting that Google makes my books free with the choosen download option ("It may take some time to launch the books under your preferred settings, so I appreciate your patience", I have read today). If the second book (already OA at Frankfurt University's GINDOK) is free in Google Indiana University can make it also free in HathiTrust (the first book is already free: http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/6051775/ ).

If a rights holder wants OA (or libre OA using a CC license) via Google for his book this would be a nice way in my opinion. (Please note that I could not use the CC option because I have only the online rights, and CC also concerns print.)

For the inserts and journal articles I cannot see such a solution. But an author as rights holder can as Google partner send offprints or PDFs to Google. I do not have any experience with this (remember that I am partner since yesterday).

I will keep you informed!

Update:
http://books.google.de/books?printsec=frontcover&id=PoAgAAAAMAAJ#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Interesting Piece on Remote Access

KlausGraf — 2009-12-02T15:32:00Z

http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2009/12/01/a-library-card-under-the-christmas-tree/

Archival Use for Twitter

KlausGraf — 2009-11-28T03:57:00Z

Archivists at Cambridge University's Scott Polar Research Institute are using Twitter to draw attention to the diary that Captain Robert Falcon Scott kept during his ill-fated 1910-1912 Antarctic expedition: every day, they tweet the first 140 characters of the diary entry that Scott penned exactly 99 years before.

http://larchivista.blogspot.com/2009/11/new-archival-use-for-twitter.html

Access National Archives clips through australianscreen online

KlausGraf — 2009-11-27T22:51:00Z

http://naa.gov.au/collection/scope/audiovisual/australianscreen.aspx

Darwin-Variorum-Edition

KlausGraf — 2009-11-26T01:26:00Z

http://darwin-online.org.uk/Variorum/index.html

Guide on Google Book Search Amended Settlement Agreement

KlausGraf — 2009-11-24T22:20:00Z

http://www.arl.org/news/pr/guide-for-perplexed-nov09.shtml

The American Library Association (ALA), the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), and the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) announce the release of A Guide for the Perplexed Part III: The Amended Settlement Agreement. The guide describes the major changes in the amended settlement agreement (ASA), submitted to the Court by Google, the Authors Guild, and the Association of American Publishers on November 13, 2009, with emphasis on those changes relevant to libraries.

SciELO Brazil adopts Creative Commons attribution of access and use

KlausGraf — 2009-11-23T22:08:00Z

After a long process of analysis and consultations with experts, scientific editors and members of the Advisory Committee of the SciELO Brasil collection, the Creative Commons (CC) Licensing, with the minimum standard "Attribution Non-commercial Use" (CC-BY-NC) was formally adopted by the SciELO collection for all of its content, and with the possibility for the editors to adopt the BY license with broader attribution.
bvsalud.org

Meet the Fuggers

KlausGraf — 2009-11-22T16:05:00Z

http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2009/11/meet-fuggers.html

Siehe schon http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/6024087/

The new HighWire - useless like the old

KlausGraf — 2009-11-20T00:02:00Z

http://highwire.stanford.edu

When searching one cannot filter free articles.

Web Archiving

KlausGraf — 2009-11-19T23:42:00Z

Lisa A. Gregory's Master's theses, "The Practice and Perception of Web Archiving in Academic Libraries and Archives," is available from the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

http://ils.unc.edu/MSpapers/3480.pdf

Leader: Put all the results out in the open

KlausGraf — 2009-11-18T15:02:00Z

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=409057

Is it right that academic research paid for by the taxpayer remains so unavailable to the people who are likely to make the most use of it?

The John Fischetti Editorial Cartoon Sketchbook Project

KlausGraf — 2009-11-16T22:01:00Z

http://www.lib.colum.edu/archives/mss_fischetti/

Via
http://blog.scad.edu/vrc/2009/11/13/the-john-fischetti-editorial-cartoon-sketchbook-project/

100 Useful Links for eBook-Lovers

KlausGraf — 2009-11-14T15:45:00Z

http://www.onlinecourses.org/2009/11/11/100-useful-links-for-ebook-lovers/