[pd-discuss] PRESS RELEASE : Gale releases all its public domain content freely on the open web

Wed Jan 9 17:13:57 UTC 2013

I find it very hard to believe that this isn't a hoax - but it would
obviously be very wonderful if it wasn't! :-)

On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 5:48 PM, Peter B. Hirtle <pbh6 at cornell.edu> wrote:

> John, I went to the Gale web site and it appears to be the case.  I just
> downloaded the software and installed it.  When you go to download a book,
> it gives you individidual  TIFF images for the pages in each title.
>
> Note that I have figure out what constitutes the "book id" for titles in
> the Sabin Americana set, but I did get it to work with a title in the
> "Making of the Modern World" collection.
>
> This is incredibly exciting news.  It is exactly what commercial
> publishers should be doing: releasing public domain content for free and
> making their money on value-added services.  And it may be a recognition
> that with the extensive digitization by Google that is underway in Europe
> right now, most of the titles in these collections will be able for free
> anyway.
>
> Of course, I haven't yet to see what, if any, tracking Gale may be doing.
>  But since they are releasing the images under a PD0 license, I can't see
> any harm that could befall me.
>
> Peter
> peter.hirtle at cornell.edu
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pd-discuss-bounces at lists.okfn.org [mailto:
> pd-discuss-bounces at lists.okfn.org] On Behalf Of John Mark Ockerbloom
> Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2013 9:39 AM
> To: Public Domain discuss list
> Subject: Re: [pd-discuss] PRESS RELEASE : Gale releases all its public
> domain content freely on the open web
>
> Do we have verification on this?  I don't see a mention on the main Gale
> site, and for some reason the access mechanism they provide is a
> "downloader" program you have to install on your machine.  I'd love this to
> be true, but I want to make sure this isn't a hoax (with or without
> possible malware).
>
> John
>
>
> On 1/9/13 8:38 AM, info at galecengage-publicdomain.com wrote:
> > Gale releases all its public domain content freely on the open web
> >
> > Andover, Hampshire UK, January 1st, 2013.
> >
> > Gale, part of Cengage Learning, is thrilled to announce that all its
> > public domain content will be freely accessible on the open web. "On
> > this Public Domain Day, we are proud to have taken such a
> > ground-breaking decision. As a common good, the Public Domain content
> > we have digitized has to be accessible to everyone" said Marmaduke
> > Robida, Director for Public Domain Content, Gale.
> > Hundreds of thousands of digitized books coming from some of the
> > world's most prestigious libraries and belonging to top-rated products
> > highly appreciated by the academic community such as "Nineteenth
> > Century Collection Online", "Eighteenth Century Collection Online",
> > "Sabin America", "Making of the Modern World" and two major digitized
> > historical newspaper collections (The Times and the Illustrated London
> > news) are now accessible from a dedicated website called
> > http://galecengage-publicdomain.com . The other Gale digital
> > collections will be progressively added to this web site throughout
> > 2013 so all Public Domain content will be freely accessible by 2014.
> > All the images are or will be available under the Public Domain Mark
> > 1.0 license and can be reused for any purpose.
> > Gale's global strategy is inspired by the recommandations issued by
> > the European reflection group "Comite des sages" and the Public Domain
> > manifesto. For Public Domain content, Gale decided to move to a
> > freemium business model : all the content is freely accessible through
> > basic tools (Public Domain Downloader, URL lists, ...), but additional
> > services are charged for. "We are confident that there still is a
> > market for our products. Our state-of-art research platforms offer
> > high quality services and added value which universities or research
> > libraries are ready to pay for" said Robida.
> > A specific campaign targeted to national and academic libraries for
> > promoting the usage of Public Domain Mark for digitized content will
> > be launched in 2013. "We are ready to help the libraries that have a
> > digitization programme fulfill their initial mission : make the
> > knowledge accessible to everyone. We also hope that our competitors
> > will follow the same way in the near future. Public Domain should not
> > be enclosed by paywalls or dubious licensing terms" said Robida.
> >
> > Contact > Marmaduke Robida | Gale Cengage |
> > marmaduke.robida at galecengage-publicdomain.com
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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-- 
Jonathan Gray <http://jonathangray.org/> | @jwyg <http://twitter.com/jwyg>
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