[okfn-discuss] Historical directories

Mon Dec 3 17:05:29 UTC 2007

Jamie Woods wrote:
> I am certainly in favour of open knowledge, and I wonder if you are 
> aware of the site www.historicaldirectories.org 
> <http://www.historicaldirectories.org> which provides access to many 
> directories (eg Kelly's and Post Office) up to about 1920. It has a good 
> search mechanism and you can find and print most things. It is run by 
> the University of Leicester, and according to its 'News' the funding ran 
> out in October 2004 and the site will become unavailable at the end of 
> this year.
> It is an excellent example of open knowledge (even if a bit out of 
> date), and it would be a great pity for it to close down.
> Is it possible for you to do anything about keeping it going?

This looks interesting and definitely something that should have been 
preserved. I'm cc'ing our discuss list in on this to see what other 
people think.

In the mean time would you be able to find out more about whether they'd 
make the source material (database) available and on what terms. I note 
that at present their legal statement is fairly draconian 
(http://www.historicaldirectories.org/hd/legal.asp):

"Unless otherwise indicated, all intellectual property rights in the 
Material appearing on this Web Site are owned by the University of 
Leicester.

...

The following activities are prohibited: (i) sale, rental, leasing or 
lending of any Material appearing on the Web Site, (ii) retransmission, 
redistribution or storage of the whole or any part of the Material 
appearing on the Web Site in any electronic retrieval or storage system, 
(iii) republication of any Material appearing on the Web Site in any 
medium (including mirroring of the whole or any part of the Material on 
the World Wide Web or the Internet)."

~rufus