[pd-discuss] Update on Gale

[Jonathan Gray]

I have it on good authority from an 18th century scholar who has worked
with ECCO and EBBO that Gale do indeed restrict access to digital copies
derived from public collections of public domain texts. I'll try and draft
something about this on the OKFN blog as soon as I can...


On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 9:41 PM, Tom Morris <tfmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 2:52 PM, Jonathan Gray <jonathan.gray at okfn.org>
> wrote:
>
> > Gale's restriction of access to public domain
> > texts is something I've been wanting to write something about for a
> while,
> > and now we have a good excuse!
>
> It seems highly unlikely that Gale is doing anything of the sort.  The
> page that I posted the URL for came from a text which is held in the
> Library of Congress: http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/coll/007.html  They
> publish a finding aid
> (http://memory.loc.gov/service/mss/eadxmlmss/eadpdfmss/2009/ms009329.pdf)
> which will tell you which manuscript box or microfilm reel to search
> in.
>
> You can see the text in their reading room or order the microfilm.  If
> you wanted a crappy copy like Gale has, you could digitize the
> microfilm and host the images on your server for all.  If you wanted a
> better quality, you'd need to negotiate with the Library of Congress
> for access to the manuscripts you want digitize (and probably pay them
> for the staff time to assist you).
>
> Gale may be doing all kinds of bad things, but I seriously doubt they
> control access to U.S. Library of Congress manuscripts.
>
> Tom
>
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-- 
Jonathan Gray <http://jonathangray.org/> | @jwyg <http://twitter.com/jwyg>
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