The Bodleian Library and Google. (GBS)

by Pete Mon Oct 12, 2009 11:14

There was no fire.

So every scrap of every document can be retrieved.

No better people to do it than the efficient Germans.
.

by ud Mon Oct 12, 2009 11:04

it is *good* to see an german interest in preservation, so has the german govt commented on this disaster:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,6113....html

The urban gentrification programmes and fast-track planning accounted for that mess.

by Pete Sun Oct 11, 2009 18:08

Not many people know that the concept of "copyright" was invented here in Ireland.

When a smart-alec young monk called Columcille made an exact copy of of an illuminated Irish manuscript his abbot Finnian demanded the copy because the copy was his property.

An Irish Brehon Law judge agreed:
"To every cow its calf...to every book its copy."

Copyright was thus invented.

Columcille got warlike over the affair
There was a "Cathach"..a battle.

Columcille lost and was expelled from Ireland.

He landed on to the remote Scottish island of Iona.

From Iona his followers (Aiden et al.) sailed on and founded Lindisfarne in Northumbria.

This changed the history of Scotland and England.
(Columcille is known as Columba in Scotland.)

Just shows you trouble you can get in to by illegally copying things.

The copied book is called "The Battle"...."An Cathach."

The copy still exists.

See it here:

http://www.google.ie/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikime...QEwBA

.

by ud Sun Oct 11, 2009 11:21

'bout time : Merkel has added her voice to the angry noises that the GBS has elicited. Great about time too, maybe her govt will look at the collapse of the archives of Cologne and urban 'gentrification' too : http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/oct/11/google...ition

by - Sun Sep 27, 2009 15:48

What is to stop people creating and preserving their own digital libraries for book-sharing, apart of course
from the twin idiots of Ryan (Ireland) and Mandelson (England) who would commission reports (Mandelson
has already it's called *Digital Britain* and then totally ignore them, indeed subvert them.

Only problem is that 24 hours after meeting David Geffen he subverted the Digital Britain report and
decided to take other advices (be it from his dinner guest or not is not entirely clear). Big problem
for governments is that many political representatives do not think and are susceptible to lobbies
'n lawyers rather than to their role in duty of care (Tara comes to mind when some corporate talks
about preservation, meaning keeping assorted bits in museums and fcking destroying everything else).

Google's ideas are here (2005) : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4320642.stm

Digital Britain here (2009) : http://www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/broadcasting/5631....aspx/

What really concerns me is that some activists here would defend *free-digitisation* that comes with the price
of subverting the work and words of those who actually created them by a monolithic corporate.
I fully believe that this is beacause Art is not considered to be work by some people when in fact it
is and many writers poured their life into creating those works that Google wishes to *own*-

They don't get to own the life's work of people by endowment, data-banks and breaching reader privacy.
I highly recommend TPB on this issue: #Pirate Bay. (sure here's their Twitter: http://twitter.com/tpb )

by ud - eggs and baskets Sat Sep 26, 2009 19:23

Theres Google, bing, yahoo, microsoft, wolfram alpha . Put these words through a search engine : Labyrinths, China, Monolith, data-privacy, monolopy and copyrights. http://www.euractiv.com/en/innovation/google-faces-new-...85200

by ud - eggs n baskets Sat Sep 26, 2009 13:59

they are working with murdoch to get micropayments for online news. guardian do it for free. google can *go* awright. They fckd China.

by E-Reader Sat Sep 26, 2009 13:52

If you want proper free access to many otherwise overpriced recent books and are prepared to read pdf files on a computer screen then search through emule network / torrent sites. You'll be surprised at what you will find there.
http://www.mininova.org/cat/2
http://www.emugle.com/
http://btjunkie.org/

(if they supress those then there's always the "wild west" of IRC channels )

If you want to see how extended copyright has stunted us then look at project gutenberg and how far back the books they are allowed publish still are.
http://www.gutenberg.org/

Imagine if project gutenberg could publish books even up to 10 years old, how much more useful and relevant it would be to humankind. This is copyright law acting for the profits of corporations and completely losing sight of the greater good.

If it takes another corporate goliath like google to overcome the paralysing effects of long copyrights on society and make more relevant books available to a larger cross section of humanity then so be it. go google

by gigapedia Sat Sep 26, 2009 13:41

free books, see the delightful http://gigapedia.com/

by Mark C Sat Sep 26, 2009 13:38

The most progressive captcha widget has just been purchased by Google to help it to digitise its books.

reCAPTCHA is a free CAPTCHA service that helps to digitize books, newspapers and old time radio shows.

Google have now purchased it in order to make the digitising of their books an easier, faster process - and who's doing the digitising? You and me.

by ud Sat Sep 26, 2009 12:12

http://www.poetryireland.ie/resources/googlebooksettlem....html

I know a few people who got legal advice to ignore the deal, don't sign. I do wonder if
cecilia ahern did- but she ain't an author by any stretch.