Allgemeines
Architekturarchive
Archivbau
Archivbibliotheken
Archive in der Zukunft
Archive von unten
Archivgeschichte
Archivpaedagogik
Archivrecht
Archivsoftware
Ausbildungsfragen
Bestandserhaltung
Bewertung
Bibliothekswesen
Bildquellen
Datenschutz
... weitere
Profil
Abmelden
Weblog abonnieren
null

 

English Corner

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/library/spcoll/palaeogr.htm

"Two online tutorials, providing interactive exercises for learning to read (a) Medieval and (b) Renaissance English handwriting, are now available for general use. [...]

All the exercises are based on digitised facsimiles of manuscripts and documents held in the Special Collections department of Leeds University Library."


At
http://readingarchives.blogspot.com/2008/06/stealing.html
Richard J. Cox writes:

I remain convinced that issues of accountability and ethics will engage archivists to an increasing extent in the next decade and beyond. Lawrence Rothfield, ed., Antiquities Under Siege: Cultural Heritage Protection After the Iraq War (Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2008) provides additional testimony to this trend. Right at the beginning, editor Rothfield sounds the alarm: “Illegal digging on a massive scale continues to this day, virtually unchecked, with Iraq’s ten thousand officially recognized sites being destroyed at a rate of roughly 10 percent per year” (p. xv). This sounds remarkably like the warnings sounded a generation ago about the growth of electronic recordkeeping and our ability to manage the portion possessing archival value.

Some might wonder why archivists should be concerned about such cultural heritage issues. Some of this heritage comes in the form of archival documentation. However, the reasons why archivists should be aware of this realm is that looting, black market networks, and the sometimes-complicit support by repositories such as archives and museums are all elements affecting the archival mission and activity.



I had interviewed or photographed everyone from Augusten Burroughs to Madonna to Shimon Peres for Wikipedia. In two days, I was to fly to Brazil to interview the mayor of Rio de Janeiro and Oscar Niemeyer, the architect. I canceled my trip. “I’m sorry,” I told the tourist board who arranged everything, “I have to fly to Denver because my mother is in the hospital.” What a lie! I flew home to Colorado because I was suffering an emotional breakdown over an Internet stalker. I endured his pursuit for three months on Wikipedia. My behavior grew erratic. My paralegal job suffered. I resigned as a volunteer Wikipedia editor.

Encyclopedia Dramatica calls this “Wikicide” and I committed it several times over. I wrote long, tortured screeds for help from fellow editors that were misread as arrogant boasts of my accomplishments. My stalker delighted in these embarrassing verbal dances on Wikipedia, the world’s seventh most-visited website. I found little help from authorities or the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs the site. “We don’t have the resources,” wrote volunteer coordinator Cary Bass. Wikipedia has become a site where people fight culture wars and ordinary contributors like me are caught in the crosshairs.


Read the whole article of David Shankbone
http://www.brooklynrail.org/2008/06/express/nobodys-safe-in-cyber-space

There is a discussion on foundation-l on stalking.

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/06/universal_fire_and_film_histor.html


The first journals with the SPARC Europe Open Access Seal were added to the Directory of Open Access Journals http://www.doaj.org



To qualify for the SPARC Europe Seal a journal must use the Creative Commons By (CC-BY) license which is the most user-friendly license and corresponds to the ethos of the Budapest Open Access Initiative. The second strand of the Seal is that journals should provide metadata for all their articles to the DOAJ, who will then make the metadata OAI-compliant.

Unfortunately only the publishers can add the license status to DOAJ (personal mail by Anna-Lena Johansson, May 21, 2008). This decision isn't appropriate. None of the many BioMedCentral CC-BY journals is tagged with CC-BY in DOAJ.

According to my mantra make all research results CC-BY I recommend that all Open Access journals should apply for the SPARC Europe OA seal.

If a journal publisher don't want CC-BY it should consider another CC llicense.

But anyway publishers should make the license and self-archiving status of the journal clear. Here are some tips.

Make a link called "Copyright" on your journal page. Answer the following questions in the section "Copyright" in a clear manner.

* What are authors allowed?

See the SHERPA-ROMEO-List
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php

Please allow that authors can use the publisher's PDF as postprint (eventually after an embargo period).

Please allow that an author can put his article in the repository with a CC license.

* What are third-parties re-use rights beyond "fair use"?

Please choose CC-BY and get the SPARC Europe OA seal (providing the article metadata to DOAJ isn't difficult)!

Put the CC-BY button on your homepage and in each full text (HMTL and PDF).

If you don't want this please make clear
* if there is another CC license (please make clear if all articles have the same license or if the licenses are differing)
* that classroom use is allowed
* that third parties can put articles in an academic Open Access repository
* that scientific data-mining is allowed (see e.g. http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/4971187/ and Peter Murray Rust's weblog passim)

If you want none of these suggestions - that's OK but don't think you are an OPEN ACCESS PUBLISHER!

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.serrev.2008.01.001

Peter Murray-Rust: Open Data in Science

Abstract

Open Data (OD) is an emerging term in the process of defining how scientific data may be published and re-used without price or permission barriers. Scientists generally see published data as belonging to the scientific community, but many publishers claim copyright over data and will not allow its re-use without permission. This is a major impediment to the progress of scholarship in the digital age. This article reviews the need for Open Data, shows examples of why Open Data are valuable, and summarizes some early initiatives in formalizing the right of access to and re-use of scientific data.

Conclusion and Recommendations

Open Data in science is now recognized as a critically important area which needs much careful and coordinated work if it is to develop successfully. Much of this requires advocacy; it is likely that when scientists are made aware of the value of labeling their work, the movement will grow rapidly. Besides the licenses and buttons, there are other tools that can make it easier to create Open Data (for example, modifying software so that it can mark the work and also to add hash codes to protect the digital integrity).

Creative Commons is well known outside Open Access and has a large following. Outside of software, it is seen by many as the default way of protecting their work while making it available in the way they wish. CC has the resources, the community respect, and the commitment to continue to develop appropriate tools and strategies.

But there is much more that needs to be done. Full Open Access is the simplest solution, but if we have to coexist with closed full text, the problem of embedded data must be addressed by recognizing the right to extract and index data. And, in any case, conventional publication discourages the full publication of the scientific record. The adoption of Open Notebook Science in parallel with the formal publications of the work can do much to liberate the data. Although data quality and formats are not strictly part of Open Data, its adoption will have marked improvements. The general realization of the value of re-use will create strong pressure for more and better data. If publishers do not gladly accept this challenge, then scientists will rapidly find other ways of publishing data, probably through institutional, departmental, national, or international subject repositories. In any case, the community will rapidly move to Open Data and publishers resisting this will be seen as a problem to be circumvented.

--
The issue is temporarily available for free ("Once again, Elsevier has agreed to make this focus issue available in its published version for the next nine to twelve months as the sample issue of Serials Review to support the intent of the authors and the concept of Open Access")

Open Data are also important for the Humanities and Social Sciences. For the Humanities there is also a need to have the source materials as open content according the ECHO charter:
http://echo.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/policy/oa_basics/charter

Last week, genealogist Dick Eastman got tired of all the complaints about "the high cost of genealogy services" and wrote a knee-jerk reaction article "I Have a Complaint Concerning Many Genealogists" that pointed out what a bargain these type of services actually are. Well, he obviously struck a chord with readers, because as of this morning the article has received over 200 reader comments - both supporting and speaking out against the opinions expressed by Dick in his article.

I definitely agree with many of Dick's views. I even get reader complaints when they find they have to register to access records for free (such as was originally required for the RecordsSearch beta at FamilySearch Labs, although that was expanded to a public access pilot last week and no longer requires registration to view the free records). On the other hand, it can be easy sometimes to get frustrated at the high cost of genealogy research. The North Carolina State Archives, for example, charges me an extra $20 fee for each genealogy request (on top of photocopying and mailing expenses) because I do not live in the state. On the one hand, this makes complete sense as a means for keeping records access reasonable for residents whose taxes go to support the archives. But on the other hand, my ancestors have been paying taxes in North Carolina for over 300 years, and literally hundreds of their descendants still live in and pay taxes in the state. Does this give me cause to complain?


Kimberly Powell at
http://genealogy.about.com/b/2008/05/26/why-genealogy-isnt-always-free.htm

See also the last comment at
http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2008/05/i-have-a-compla.html

http://www.digital-scholarship.org/gbsb/gbsb.htm

The titles are in English.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/digital-text/message/310

Dear Live Search Books Publisher Program Partner,

We are writing today to inform you that we are ending the Live Search
Books Publisher Program, including our digitization initiative, and
closing the Live Search Books site. We recognize that this is
disappointing news to you and to the users of the Live Search Books
service. Ending the Live Search Books program is the result of a
strategic decision on our part to focus our investments in new
vertical search areas where we believe we can more effectively
differentiate Live Search.

Given the evolution of the web and our strategy, we believe the next
generation of search is about the development of an underlying,
sustainable business model for search engines, consumers, and content
partners. For example, this past Wednesday, we announced our strategy
to focus on verticals with high commercial intent, such as travel, and
offer users cash back on their purchases from our advertisers.

With Live Search Books and Live Search Academic, we digitized 750,000
books and indexed 80 million journal articles. Based on our
experience, we foresee that the best way for a search engine to make
book content available will be by crawling content repositories
created by book publishers and libraries. With our investments, the
technology to create these repositories is now available at lower
costs for those with the commercial interest or public mandate to
digitize book content. We will continue to track the evolution of
theindustry and evaluate future opportunities.

As we wind down Live Search Books we will be reaching out to you in
partnership with Ingram Digital Group with information on new
marketing and sales opportunities designed to help you derive ongoing
benefits from your participation in the Live Search Books Publisher
Program. As part of this initiative, we will be making the scan files
we created from your print book submissions available to you for
free. We will follow-up next week with more information on these
offers.

The Live Search Books Publisher Program site
( http://publisher.live.com ) will be taken down immediately. The Live
Search Books site ( http://books.live.com ) will be taken down next
week.

We sincerely appreciate your support and regret any inconvenience that
this decision has caused. You can read more about this announcement on
The Live Search blog ( http://blogs.msdn.com/livesearch ).

Sincerely,

The Live Search Books Team

books@microsoft.com


From
http://blogs.msdn.com/livesearch/archive/2008/05/23/book-search-winding-down.aspx

We have learned a tremendous amount from our experience and believe this decision, while a hard one, can serve as a catalyst for more sustainable strategies. To that end, we intend to provide publishers with digital copies of their scanned books. We are also removing our contractual restrictions placed on the digitized library content and making the scanning equipment available to our digitization partners and libraries to continue digitization programs.

On MSN Live Search Books see in German
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/4411496/

German users have to use the follwowing URL to see the contents
http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=&scope=books&mkt=en-US

David Rothman comments the decision:
At any rate, the killing of those "Live" services means less competition for Google and Amazon—and fewer choices for consumers and cash-strapped libraries.
http://www.teleread.org/blog/2008/05/23/bad-news-for-e-books-microsoft-live-search-books-and-journal-searcher-to-go-dead/

On the consequences for the Internet Archive which will seek other funding see
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/24/technology/24soft.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

If MSN has digitized Public Domain content in cooperation with the Open Content Alliance download links to the Internet Archive (IA) were given in MSN Live Search Books. After the end of Live Search the books are still downloadable at the IA but there will be no full text search.

There were no download links for the proprietary MSN Public Domain content especially the Cornell library cooperation. If Cornell doesn't make this books available this content will disappear next week. It is possible to circumvent the MSN digital rights management with simple means. I would like to recommend to do so and to save as many books as possible for the Public Domain.

Update: 75,000 public domain books from Cornell has been scanned by MSN. Cornell is aware of the problem (personal mail from Peter Hirtle).

I did a quick search for "archival" in Live Search Books and checked the first 100 matches. 10 books are without download link and from Cornell. This include two volumes from the "Calendar of State Papers" from the UK Public Record Office. A lot of this series was digitized by MSN, most volumes in cooperation with Cornell.

I also found a valuable guide to US history materials in Spanish archives from 2007 from Cornell:

http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=&scope=books&mkt=en-US#&t=sb0gG9ZSvlD-6kbGj3Z2nA

Update:

Peter Delin quotes in INETBIB:

http://lsv.uky.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0805&L=amia-l&F=&S=&P=44023
As is often the case with announcements like this, there's good and bad news. The good news is that Microsoft is removing the restrictions that it had placed on the out-of-copyright books they paid to scan. These books will be available through the Internet Archive and the Open Library (http://openlibrary.org). The Open Library supports full-text queries. MSFT is also letting the IA keep the extensive scanning infrastructure that it partly paid to develop. Book scanning with Open Content Alliance partners that are not MSFT partners is continuing.

The bad news is that MSFT's significant support for digitization will be winding down. We are working to find funding so that we can continue, and even increase, our efforts. We would like to keep the cultural heritage that's held by the world's major libraries accessible through the public and not-for-profit sector, rather than through a small number of commercial enterprises.

I think there's a important lesson here for public and nonprofit archives and libraries. We can't rely on the commercial sector to build and maintain persistent, long-lasting collections. If we're going to fulfill our mission to preserve cultural heritage, we will have to find ways to do it within noncommercial institutions, organizations that can take a longer view without falling victim to short-term pressures.

Rick (speaking on his own, not for Internet Archive)

Critical comment: http://lsv.uky.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0805&L=amia-l&F=&S=&P=44151

http://archivius.blogspot.com/

Arch.i.vi.us is news about archives, archivists and issues of concern to archivists, generated from news searches (machine generated with parameters set by humans), delicious tags (tagged by humans with the same interests as the topics of this blog) and RSS feeds from various sources.

Together, arch.i.vi.us is collecting information about:

* Digitization
* Digital Preservation
* Web Archiving
* Electronic Records Management
* Knowledge Management and the Sharing of research efforts

In addition, there are some light-hearted, fun stuff, such as content pulled from YouTube and Flickr.

 

twoday.net AGB

xml version of this page

xml version of this topic

powered by Antville powered by Helma