[OpenGLAM] City Archives Amsterdam

Edson, Michael EDSONM at si.edu
Tue Jan 22 17:54:02 UTC 2013


Such an interesting question, Joris, simply and well described.
Can you send a link to a record that you cannot get the image for unless you pay?

From: Joris Pekel <joris.pekel at okfn.org<mailto:joris.pekel at okfn.org>>
Date: Tuesday, January 22, 2013 11:21 AM
To: "open-glam at lists.okfn.org<mailto:open-glam at lists.okfn.org>" <open-glam at lists.okfn.org<mailto:open-glam at lists.okfn.org>>
Subject: [OpenGLAM] City Archives Amsterdam

Dear OpenGLAM list,

I would like to hear your opinion on the following.

The City Archives of Amsterdam has just published some great results of their crowdsourcing project. Via the webpage velehanden.nl<http://velehanden.nl> (many hands) around 1600 volunteers have indexed more than 300000 archival records from their militia register. The city archive had already scanned the records and now with the help of the volunteers these can also be searched.  (sidenote: the active volunteers could get points that they could spend to access a digital copy for free)

At the same time, it is for me as a normal person not possible to get free access to these records. I can now search very well (and I think I found a record about my great-grandfather there) but I can not access the image unless I pay 50 cents. The records are old enough to all be in the public domain.

The reasoning of the city archive for the paywall is that that by selling these scans, they have money for more digitisation efforts.

Now, this paywall goes against all of my 'open' feelings, especially now the metadata has been crowdsourced and the images are PD. Still, finding money for digitisation sure is a difficult task and new business models still need to be found.

It just feels like such a shame to lock this great material and volunteer effort away from the world, and think about the missed potential for researchers..

Please share your thoughts. If possible, I will definitely adress them to the persons responsible.

All the best,

--
Joris Pekel
Community Coordinator
Open Knowledge Foundation
http://okfn.org<http://okfn.org/>
http://twitter.com/jpekel




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