Archivalia: English Corner

English Corner

KlausGraf - am Dienstag, 28. Januar 2014, 21:27 - Rubrik: English Corner

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"Several of our locations are closed today because of the severe weather in the Midwest: Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives at Chicago, National Archives at St. Louis, and the Federal Records Centers in Chicago, St. Louis, Dayton, and Kingsridge."
Source: US National Archives via Facebook, 06.01.2014

Wolf Thomas - am Montag, 6. Januar 2014, 19:15 - Rubrik: English Corner

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How the Harper Government Committed a Knowledge Massacre

Scientists are calling it "libricide." Seven of the nine world-famous Department of Fisheries and Oceans [DFO] libraries were closed by autumn 2013, ostensibly to digitize the materials and reduce costs. But sources told the independent Tyee in December that a fraction of the 600,000-volume collection had been digitized. And, a secret federal document notes that a paltry $443,000 a year will be saved. The massacre was done quickly, with no record keeping and no attempt to preserve the material in universities. Scientists said precious collections were consigned to dumpsters, were burned or went to landfills.
Probably the most famous facility to get the axe is the library of the venerable St. Andrews Biological Station in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, which environmental scientist Rachel Carson used extensively to research her seminal book on toxins, Silent Spring. The government just spent millions modernizing the facility.

Also closed were the Freshwater Institute library in Winnipeg and the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Centre in St. John's, Newfoundland, both world-class collections. Hundreds of years of carefully compiled research into aquatic systems, fish stocks and fisheries from the 1800s and early 1900s went into the bin or up in smoke.

Irreplaceable documents like the 50 volumes produced by the H.M.S. Challenger expedition of the late 1800s that discovered thousands of new sea creatures, are now moldering in landfills.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/capt-trevor-greene/science-cuts-canada_b_4534729.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

https://twitter.com/search?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.ca%2Fcapt-trevor-greene%2Fscience-cuts-canada_b_4534729.html

Thanks to HaeB

See also

http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2013/12/27/libricide-harper-government-closing-and-junking-environmental-libraries/

http://thetyee.ca/News/2013/12/23/Canadian-Science-Libraries/

http://boingboing.net/2014/01/04/canadian-libraricide-tories-t.html

Update:
http://thetyee.ca/News/2014/01/08/Scientists-Say-DFOs-Library-Closure-Defence-Doesnt-Add-Up/

http://scienceblogs.com/confessions/2014/01/10/the-canadian-war-on-science-a-chronological-account-of-chaos-consolidation-at-the-department-of-fisheries-oceans-libraries/

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

KlausGraf - am Sonntag, 5. Januar 2014, 09:15 - Rubrik: English Corner

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Internet Archive: The Console Living Room

https://archive.org/details/consolelivingroom

"In an expansion of the Historical Software Collection, the Internet Archive has opened the Console Living Room, a collection of console video games from the 1970s and 1980s."

https://blog.archive.org/2013/12/26/a-second-christmas-morning-the-console-living-room/

"The announcements of the Console Living Room and the Historical Software Collection have brought a large amount of attention to the JSMESS emulator that archive.org uses. ... This entry is meant to cover the most frequently asked questions and will be updated as new information becomes available."

https://blog.archive.org/2013/12/31/still-life-with-emulator-the-jsmess-faq/

Historical Software Collection: http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/528988900/

SW - am Donnerstag, 2. Januar 2014, 19:57 - Rubrik: English Corner

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Is Academia.edu offering Open Access?

https://blogs.lt.vt.edu/openvt/2013/12/22/beyond-elsevier/

"Academia.edu, ResearchGate, Mendeley (now owned by Elsevier) and others do not provide open access. Sign-up should not be required for access. Software download, in the case of Mendeley, should not be required for access. These services do not meet the definition of open access established by the Budapest Open Access Initiative"

BTW: MERRY CHRISTMAS!

KlausGraf - am Dienstag, 24. Dezember 2013, 17:59 - Rubrik: English Corner

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GW News, Dec 2013 /by Falk Eisermann

Dear colleagues,

Quite a lot of news from the incunabula world towards the end of 2013; apologies for the lengthy message (I’ll be quiet for the next couple of weeks, I promise) and for cross-posting:

1.) Digitization
a) After yesterday’s update, the GW database now contains 13,356 entries with links to digitized incunabula (an increase of about 360 since July).

b) A couple of recently launched digitization projects came to our attention:
- The joint Bodleian/Vatican project, http://bav.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/early-printed-books (lists at http://bav.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/browse?field_themes_tid=48 and http://bav.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/browse?field_themes_tid=47, with links to various subsections). The Bodleian and Vatican copies of the Gutenberg Bible (GW 4201) are already online. See also the digitized Bodleian copy of what was called “the real first Hebrew biblical text ever printed”, atv http://gesamtkatalogderwiegendrucke.de/docs/M35942.htm.
- “Biblioteca Italiana”, already presenting 900 (out of a targeted 1,600) digitized incunabula in Italian language: http://www.bibliotecaitaliana.it/collezioni/incunaboli and http://www.bibliotecaitaliana.it/indice/elenco/collection/276. Most of the links haven’t yet been added to the GW database.

c) One of the fastest-growing digital collections is Frankfurt University Library, cf http://sammlungen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/inc/nav/index/all, for the Hebrew incunabula: http://sammlungen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/inchebr/nav/index/all. Others are also very active – alas mainly in Germany, but not much is happening in the UK, except Oxford, or the USA, I’m afraid.

d) The most recent digital offering from our own collection is the unique copy of Ulrich Boner, “Edelstein”, c. 1462, printed by Albrecht Pfister in Bamberg (GW 4840; digital images at http://resolver.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/SBB0000F63500000000.

***

2.) New incunabula (mostly broadsides)
a) In the Dessau branch of the Landeshauptarchiv Sachsen-Anhalt (in Central Germany), no less than 5 unrecorded broadsides were found thanks to a wonderful online finding aid (“Findbücher), cf GW 0794250N, 1096750N, M2203650, M2205005, M3073050 (use numbers to locate the items in the database; click on the abbreviation “LArch” in the copy list to be directed to the Findbuch entry).

b) Another archival finding of a broadside featuring a hitherto unknown “author” comes from Bautzen (Saxony), see http://gesamtkatalogderwiegendrucke.de/docs/HILLEBE.htm

c) For an unrecorded early Dutch indulgence by Arend de Keysere, published in 1479 and hence one of his earliest imprints, see http://gesamtkatalogderwiegendrucke.de/docs/GW1031050N.htm

d) My own library recently recently acquired a hitherto unrecorded small edition of an unknown text by an elusive author named Jacobus Leonicenus (on top of this, it is printed in what seems to be an otherwise unrecorded Roman type; that’s kind of “super unique”, I should think.): http://gesamtkatalogderwiegendrucke.de/docs/JACOLEO.htm. The booklet deals with the expulsion of the Jews from Vicenza in 1486, and certainly needs further study, hence all help and enquiries are greatly appreciated (digitization early in 2014).

***

3.) New database: Typenrepertorium der Wiegendrucke
The GW has recently launched the new database “Typenrepertorium der Wiegendrucke” (TW) at http://tw.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de. The TW is based on Haebler’s 5-volume Typenrepertorium, which recorded all fifteenth-century types and other material from European printing houses. During the decades of work at the GW, the Typenrepertorium was continually amended, corrected, and supplemented. New types, even unknown printing houses were discovered on a regular basis (and it goes on, see above re Leonicenus), and for the types known to Haebler lots of additional material, illustrations, and references were accumulated in our files. Until now, all this was not available to the public, at least not without a visit to the GW. This has now changed: The TW contains entries for 2,000 printing houses and their typographic material; all 15th-century types currently known are recorded. Furthermore, the database documents about 4,400 initials, 700 printer’s and publisher’s marks, and 350 title-page woodcuts. It also provides scans of all images from the “Gesellschaft für Typenkunde” (GfT) tables, two and a half thousand items reproducing individual incunabula pages and type alphabets. The GfT scans are embedded within the data sets for the individual types. The long-term aim of the TW is to provide exact descriptions of all 15th-c. types and above all to explain their distinctive features with regard to “similar” types used by other printers. The TW is, of course, work in progress; all corrections, advice, questions, etc. are very welcome, please direct them to my colleague Oliver Duntze at oliver.duntze@sbb.spk-berlin.de. With the GW being a German-language database, all texts and functions are in German; if you want to find e.g. a printer or a place of printing, you need to use the GW name form (“Schobser”, not “Schobsser”; “Köln”, not “Cologne”, as in ISTC; etc.). We hope to provide “Help” texts and ssome instructions in English in the near future, in the meantime please don’t hesitate to ask if there are any handling problems.

***

Finally, seasonal greetings, incunabulist-style: If you are inclined to sing French Carols on Christmas Eve, you might want to take a look at a nice manuscript of “Chansons de Noel” in the Bibliothèque nationale, Paris, Ms. franc. 2506 (http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b90073527). On the last page of the ms. (http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b90073527/f86.image) there’s a colophon saying: “Chanson de noel Inprime par Marin Danfré, le dernier jour d’octobre l’an mil Cin Ceme“, which seems to indicate a printing date of 31 Oct 1500. That would be an early 16th century manuscript copy of a lost incunable, if the GW’s files are corrcet (see http://gesamtkatalogderwiegendrucke.de/docs/M27194.htm). Oddly enough, the printer(?) Marin Danfré, or Danfray, seems to have left no other traces, at least none that we know of.

Thanks for your patience,
Best wishes,
Falk

KlausGraf - am Donnerstag, 19. Dezember 2013, 23:15 - Rubrik: English Corner

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UK: Bible Society to sell important bible manuscripts

The following was posted by Dr Clive D Field to the Religious-Archives-Group listserv:

https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=RELIGIOUS-ARCHIVES-GROUP;56cf2def.1312

On 16 September 2013 the Bible Society announced that it intends to open in 2014 a new visitor centre in a deconsecrated church in North Wales, on the shore of Lake Bala. The centre will tell the story of the Bible’s impact on Wales and, through Wales, the rest of the world. Funding for the initiative is to be raised ‘through the sale of some assets, and donations from Bible Societies around the world and supporters’.

It now emerges that the assets being sold include biblical manuscripts which form part of the Society’s library and archives which have been built up incrementally since the Society’s foundation in 1804. The collection has been on deposit, and publicly accessible, at Cambridge University Library since the Society moved its headquarters from London to Swindon in 1985. In return for its custodianship, the Library receives an annual grant from the Society (£39,000 in 2012-13).

The Society’s disposal policy is set out in its annual report and accounts for 2012-13: ‘Bible Society occasionally disposes of items where un-catalogued duplicate materials are identified or where materials are not a core part of the historic Bible collection. The proceeds generated are generally used for the enhancement of the collection by cataloguing, conservation and digitisation, as well as occasional purchases of relevant and related printed and manuscript material. During the year ended 31 March 2013, sales of uncatalogued duplicates totalled £115,000 (2012, £Nil).’

The planned sale of a small number of manuscripts is being handled by Christies on behalf of the Society. The decision to sell has apparently been taken by the Society’s Board of Trustees, which is chaired by Philip Green. It seems likely that the manuscripts are those which are mentioned in the report and accounts for 2012-13 as having been recently valued at £1.8 million. It is hard to imagine how these can be defined as ‘non-core’, and certainly the proceeds of the sale do not seem destined to be ploughed back into the collection.

Cambridge University Library is being offered first refusal to buy six of the Society’s manuscripts. The University has today (14 December 2013) issued a press release launching a public appeal to raise £1.1 million to purchase the single most important manuscript, the Codex Zacynthius.

The Codex takes its name from the Greek island Zakynthos, from whence it was brought back in 1821 and presented to the Society. It is a palimpsest of 176 vellum leaves, which contains an undertext (first deciphered in 1861) of fragments of the Gospel of St Luke, chapters 1:1-11:33 in Greek, and which have been dated to the 6th or 7th century. It is also said to be the oldest extant New Testament manuscript with a commentary alongside the text. It is classed as in ‘the top flight of Biblical manuscripts’ by Lord Williams of Oystermouth (former Archbishop of Canterbury). More details are given in the press release at:

http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/cambridge-university-library-bids-to-purchase-early-gospel-manuscript

The Library has until the end of February 2014 to raise the £1.1 million. If it is unsuccessful, the manuscript will presumably go to auction, and there is a fair chance that it will be sold to a foreign institution or a private collector, and thus be lost for the nation.

The membership of the Religious Archives Group will doubtless wish the Library well in its efforts, and some members may even be able to suggest possible donors to help. Nevertheless, this will be a stretching fundraising target for the Library, not least since it comes so soon after completion of fundraising to purchase (with the Bodleian Libraries in Oxford) for £1.2 million the Lewis-Gibson Genizah Collection of Hebrew and Arabic manuscripts from Westminster College, Cambridge, as announced by the Library on 6 December 2013 at:

http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/newspublishing/index.php?c=1#news421

The Bible Society’s decision to sell important and unique Biblical items from its heritage collection is regrettable and, some of its donors and legators may well feel, a betrayal of the Society’s past. It also begs the question of what further sales from the collection the Society may contemplate in future. The Society’s President is Rt Revd and Rt Hon Richard Chartres, Bishop of London, who gave an inspirational speech at the launch of the Religious Archives Group’s religious archives survey three years ago. (EXLIBRIS-L)

KlausGraf - am Mittwoch, 18. Dezember 2013, 01:37 - Rubrik: English Corner

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Turkish National Library sold books to a junk company

http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/kultur-sanat/25310113.asp (tr)

"The library sold 147 tons of books to a junk company at a price of 7 to 25 cents a kg. Most of them were antiquarian titles and serial in Armenian, Greek and Karamanlica (Turkish using Greek alphabet). The reason is that the TNL does not have staff who can read Armenian, Greek, Hebrew, Judeospanish or Assyrian." (Rifat Bali, EXLIBRIS)

KlausGraf - am Mittwoch, 11. Dezember 2013, 21:20 - Rubrik: English Corner

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1810+ Entries in the "English Corner" of Archivalia since 2003

In the collaborative archival blog Archivalia (founded in February 2003) have I and some other contributors posted more than 1800 entries in the English language in the so-called English Corner

http://archiv.twoday.net/topics/English+Corner/

There is a separate RSS feed at

http://archiv.twoday.net/topics/English+Corner/index.rdf

This year's Archivalia advent calendar features a "Best of" of 10 years Archivalia:

http://archiv.twoday.net/search?q=%23bestof

At least one entry should be an English one. Please let me know your favourite entry!

THANK YOU!

***

The first entry in the English Corner was published on February 10, 2003:

http://archiv.twoday.net/topics/English+Corner/?start=1810

To make browsing easyer I have compiled the following list.

First January 2004 entries:

http://archiv.twoday.net/topics/English+Corner/?start=1700

First 2005 entries
http://archiv.twoday.net/topics/English+Corner/?start=1570

(This means: around 130 entries in 2004 in the "English Corner")

First 2006 entries
http://archiv.twoday.net/topics/English+Corner/?start=1490

First 2007 entries
http://archiv.twoday.net/topics/English+Corner/?start=1390

First 2008 entries
http://archiv.twoday.net/topics/English+Corner/?start=1150

First 2009 entries
http://archiv.twoday.net/topics/English+Corner/?start=920

First 2010 entries
http://archiv.twoday.net/topics/English+Corner/?start=610

First 2011 entries
http://archiv.twoday.net/topics/English+Corner/?start=330

First 2012 entries
http://archiv.twoday.net/topics/English+Corner/?start=150

First 2013 entries
http://archiv.twoday.net/topics/English+Corner/?start=80

The decrease of entries in the English language since 2011 is partly attribuable to the fact that I am blogging English links in the Tumblr blog Archivalia_EN (mosty entries posting images), see below.

***

Some examples of interesting or remarkable entries in this category:

Berlin Declaration on Open Access (2003)
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/92803/

The Labadie collection, Univ. of Michigan (2004)
by Ingrid Strauch
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/277675/

What means Open Access? (2004)
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/320964/
See also
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/3208179/

Finding E-Books (2005)
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/837865/
Actually Place 18 of Archivalia's mostread entries since 2003 (23352 visits)

Electronic Reserves and Open Access (2005)
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/1038010/
See also
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/4931438/

How Google Print is Blocking Not-US-Citizens (2005)
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/1073534/
See also
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/2922570/
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/2643658/

Burning Money: Google's Scanning Nonsense (2006)
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/2609488/

Google Library Project Expands to Spain (2006)
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/2797078/
with list of Digital Libraries of rare Books in Spain

Entries on the Karlsruhe cultural desaster in the English language (2006)
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/2895365/
e.g. http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/2756850/
See also
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/3199442/ (by Nicolas Barker)

MSN Live Search Books (2006)
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/3042759/
The project was shut down in 2008:
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/4946163/

How the Wellcome Trust is breaking the Creative Commons rules (2007)
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/3945879/

How to find the correct volume and issue number in Google Books (2007)
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/4128885/

An Archivist’s 2.0 Manifesto? (2007)
Reblogged from Kate Theimer
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/4183190/
Again reblogged by Thomas Wolf (2010)
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/8376023/

How Harnad is adulterating Open Access (2007)
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/4351742/
See also
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/5332335/

Digital Libraries in Japan with content in western languages (2008)
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/4575784/

Archive.org as a Platform for Nazi Propaganda (2008)
By Ladislaus
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/4607178/

Opinion piece: Max Planck Society and Springer strike a deal (2008)
By Bernd-Christoph Kämper
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/4678297/

Top Cited articles 2004-2008 (2008)
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/4781179/

There is no need to update the BBB definition! (2008)
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/4851871/
See also
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/4854728/
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/4853394/
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/4905985/

Secret Destruction of Cardiff Heritage Collection (2008)
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/5169098/
See also
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/6283511/ (Collection saved)
http://archiv.twoday.net/search?q=cardiff

Research Institutes in the History of Arts against Rising Image Permission Costs (2008)
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/5405864/

ICA-Message of sympathy and support for Cologne Archives (2009)
By Thomas Wolf
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/5561083/
See also
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/5558898/
http://archiv.twoday.net/search?q=cologne+archive

English News on the Cologne Archive Collapse (Updated) (2009)
By Frank Schlöffel (who wrote many more such summaries in Archivalia)
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/5576545/

Webliographer's Manifesto (2009)
By Dana F. Sutton
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/5587472/

US: Library Deaccessioning (2009)
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/5701854/

A look at the scholarship of Harvard's famous Professor Andrew H. Knoll (comparing DASH and Google Scholar) (2009)
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/5918219/

Large Digital Libraries of Pre-1800 Printed Books in Western Languages (2009)
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/6107864/
Last Update: November 2013

ICA: Visit of Mr. Jean-Wilfrid Bertrand, director of the National Archives of Haiti (2010)
By Thomas Wolf
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/6455278/
See also
http://archiv.twoday.net/search?q=haiti

How to use an US-Proxy to get access to HathiTrust items (2011)
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/11553592/

UFO file release August 2011 (2011)
By Thomas Wolf
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/38743204/

Archival Haiku 2011. Winners of the SAA Contest (2011)
By Thomas Wolf
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/38778466/

Typewriter Day at Archivalia_EN (2011)
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/42994144/
NB: Since September 2011 is online
"Archivalia ac Digitalia - a twitter-like blog with stuff from Archivalia's English corner and content in the English language plus additional stuff from elsewhere
http://archivalia.tumblr.com/ "
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/41787599/
In Archivalia-EN can be found a lot of link stuff not covered in Archivalia!

Simon Chu:The Power of Archives in Human Rights Advocacy
By Thomas Wolf
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/64969686/

If Open Access, then libre Open Access. If libre Open Access, then CC BY! (2012)
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/97033564/

News on the Girolamini thefts in Naples (2012)
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/156273520/
See also
http://archiv.twoday.net/search?q=girolamini

Causa Stralsund – the sellout of an archive (2012)
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/224317875/
See also
http://archiv.twoday.net/search?q=stralsund

Our tribute to Aaron Swartz – #pdftribute (2013)
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/233327898/

Lists of digitized manuscript catalogs and multi-library medieval manuscript databases (2013)
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/453138863/

News from the Georgia Archives (2013)
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/453146920/
See also
http://archiv.twoday.net/search?q=georgia+archive

http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/565870642/ (2013)

KlausGraf - am Donnerstag, 5. Dezember 2013, 19:55 - Rubrik: English Corner

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170 digitised manuscripts from the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate now available online

http://cpart.maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/home/resources/manuscripts/cop/ (apparently digitized microflms, digital manuscripts hosted by the Internet Archive

https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Center+for+the+Preservation+of+Ancient+Religious+Texts%2C+BYU%22

CC-BY.NC-ND! ND means: only the whole item, no single pages can be re-used.)

via https://twitter.com/MedievalEgypt/status/408666330037235712

via Maria Rottler

KlausGraf - am Donnerstag, 5. Dezember 2013, 19:41 - Rubrik: English Corner

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