http://www.neha.nl/w3vl/webresources.html#1403
Books and E-Texts

http://www.escholarlypub.com/oab/keyoaconcepts.htm

Excerpt:

The important things to note in the basic definition are that open access deals with peer-reviewed articles or preprints and that free access to these works is not equivalent to open access. Open access also requires no restrictions on how published material is subsequently used except to require that proper attribution of the work be given to the author and that authors retain control over the integrity of their work.

UK archives (in the original "archival" sense of archives), or at least the subset that are already digital, online, and OA, will soon become interoperable and cross-searchable. From a Monica Halpin post to the archives-nra list (June 21): 'The UK's leading archive bodies have agreed a groundbreaking new programme which will revolutionise online access to archives. The programme, aUK, will be a powerful new search engine to connect all of the UK's archives. It will promote the development and digitisation of new archival content, taken from both official records and different kinds of community and independent archives. And it will set new technological standards with a focus on improving interoperability standards and initiating a new strategy for the hosting of the UK's online archives. The members of the scheme are: Chris Batt, Chief Executive of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council; Liz Hallam-Smith, Chair of the National Council on Archives; Gwyn Jenkins, Director of Collection Services of the National Library of Wales; George Mackenzie, Chief Executive of the National Archives of Scotland; Gerry Slater, Chief Executive of the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland; Sarah Tyacke, Chief Executive of the National Archives. Sarah Tyacke CB, Chief Executive of the National Archives, said: "This programme will break new ground in enabling people to search online for historical records and information, whether they're researching their family tree, finding out the story of their street, or investigating a school history project. It's a technical solution which will make an enormous difference to the way we manage and access information about our past, and we're all tremendously excited about it."' (Thanks to Paul Miller.) (PS: Apparently the aUK Project does not yet have a website.)

Posted by Peter Suber at
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2005_06_19_fosblogarchive.html#111946168238759898

David Koller and Marc Levoy, Protecting 3D Graphics Content, Communications of the ACM, June 2005. Abstract: 'Valuable 3D graphical models, such as high-resolution digital scans of cultural heritage objects, may require protection to prevent piracy or misuse, while still allowing for interactive display and manipulation by a widespread audience. This article considers some techniques for protecting 3D graphics content, and describes a remote rendering system that we have developed for sharing archives of 3D models while protecting the 3D geometry from unauthorized extraction. Additionally, we demonstrate how digitized 3D models can be used to generate accurate physical replicas of artworks such as Michelangelo's David.'

Here are two good comments to get the conversation going:

From DocBug's Owning David, June 20, 2005: '[A]s academics Koller and Levoy understand how the free sharing of history, art and scholarly data contributes to society as a whole, but they also recognize that without some assurance that this data is not shared freely, the authorities who control access to the original works won't allow any sharing. The museum would also like to see the data shared with fellow researchers, but don't want to see it used to make replicas without their approval and license fees....What Koller and Levoy are protecting are not the museum's property — the 3D models of David belong to the public at large. What they are protecting is a business model, one that is based on preventing the legitimate and legal sharing of information. Their opponents in this battle are neither thieves nor pirates, they are merely potential competitors for the museum's gift shop, or customers the museum fears losing.'

From Ernest Miller's Free the David, June 20, 2005: 'Piracy!? Theft!? I do not blame the authors of the paper, who are forced to agree with the relevant authorities in order to gain access to the works in the first place (and it is better that the works are scanned than not at all). I do blame the cultural authorities who dare to claim a gatekeeper function to the digital reproductions of these works that are the cultural heritage of the world. These works are not "owned" by their representative cultural institutions, but held in trust for all mankind: a position of responsibility with a duty to preserve our common cultural heritage. A secondary duty is to provide open access to these works, consistent with the duty to preserve....When digital scans can provide everything but physical access, the true pirates and thieves are those who would deny such access. They may do so out of a misguided belief that they require such control in order to fund themselves, but this only means that they are essentially holding access to our cultural heritage hostage.' (My emphasis, KG)

From Peter Suber's Open Access News
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2005_06_19_fosblogarchive.html#111935638808644804

See also
http://docbug.com/blog/archives/000377.html

http://www.pase.ac.uk/

Anyone conducting genealogical research into Anglo-Saxon England now has a new resource launched on May 27, 02005, the Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England (PASE). PASE is a free database of all named and anonymous individuals recorded in all pre-Conquest (before 1066 AD) sources. The sources themselves are not available, but all information about the person, including contextual data from the sources, has been included in structured entries that can be searched a variety of ways, including by gender. The current database contains information dating between the late 6th century and up to 1042. Future work will extend coverage up to and beyond 1066 AD when William the Conqueror changed the course of English history.

http://www.davidmattison.ca/wordpress/?p=1279

Google gets to do anything it wants with the public domain material it
digitizes, and U of M cannot do anything with this material other than use
it on their own website, assuming that measures are taken to prevent
crawling, scraping, or other types of automatic retrieval. As for
copyrighted material, Google decides what is "fair use" and what isn't,
and U of M is out of the picture.

Daniel Brandt at
http://blog.librarylaw.com/librarylaw/2005/06/google_univ_of__1.html

http://www.pierre-marteau.com/currency/converter.html

The Marteau Early 18th-Century Currency Converter is, if you want, a set of tools facilitating computations between early 18th-century monies. If you have a sum in one money we tell you how much that would have been in another. The tools operate on contemporary parity rates and evaluations of the circulating coinage – an orientation of greatest use wherever you had to compare prices and wages. Most of the 17th and 18th century currencies were based on non-decimal systems. We should make it easier to calculate with sums in these currencies.

To all those concerned with appraisal: please take the time to read the ICA/CAP draft Manual on Appraisal and send your comments (in French or English) to Rosine Cleyet.

The Manual on Appraisal is conceived as a practical guide, aimed first and foremost at archivists faced with the daily problems of appraising and selecting documents, and who may not have been trained to do so.

To download: http://www.ica.org/biblio.php?pdocid=292

Send your remarks to: Rosine Cleyet, chair ICA/CAP, rcleyet-michaud@cg59.fr

By: 30 JUNE 2005

------------------------------------------------

Journal of the Society of Archivists

ISSN 0037-9816

Publisher: Carfax Publishing, part of the Taylor & Francis Group
Volume 26, Issue 1, April 2005


Diplomatic Attitudes: From Mabillon to Metadata
pp. 1-24(24)
Author: Williams, Caroline

Understanding Users and Use: A Market Segmentation Approach
pp. 25-53(29)
Author: Yeo, Geoffrey

On the Crest of a Wave or Swimming Against the Tide? Professional Education in an Information-conscious Society1
pp. 55-73(19)
Author: Procter, Margaret

Developing Archival Context Standards for Functions in the Higher Education Sector1
pp. 75-85(11)
Author: Peters, Victoria

Postcards from Scapa Flow: Developing a Conservation Strategy for Material Recovered from SMS Karlsruhe
pp. 87-104(18)
Author: Clydesdale, Amanda

Genocidal Archives: The African Context—Genocide in Rwanda
pp. 105-121(17)
Authors: Adami, Tom; Hunt, Martha

Anthony Peter Munford (1944 – 2004)
pp. 123-126(4)
Author: Barber, Brian

Kathleen Margaret Topping (1952 – 2002)
pp. 127-129(3)
Authors: Yates, Nigel; Cresswell, Alison

‘Something is Happening Here and You Don't Know What it is': Jacques Derrida Unplugged
pp. 131-142(12)
Author: Harris, Verne

Reviews
pp. 143-187(45)

Notices of New Publications Received
pp. 189-191(3)