Online
Joy Cadwallader, Aberystwyth University (Aberystwyth Online User Group)
Please send your submissions for the next edition to jrc@aber.ac.uk .
Danish Royal Library
http://www.kb.dk/
ProQuest have begun a pilot project with the Danish Royal Library to digitize more than 2000 15 th and 16 th century books. The project, which forms an extension of the Early English Books Digitization Programme, will feature high-resolution colour page images, a multi-lingual interface and detailed indexing of features such as illumination and marginalia. The collection includes the earliest books printed in Denmark.
The Danish Royal Library has also gone into partnership with Google Books for the scanning of over 1.6 million volumes. Curator Erland Kolding Nielsen said, “I believe Danish culture and Danish material on the Web would disappear in the Anglo-Saxon deluge”. The Danish government, who had been unable to find sufficient funds for the digitization project, have welcomed the partnership.
Digital Economy Bill
The Digital Economy Bill, announced in the House of Commons on 23/11/09, has been welcomed by the British Library, as it will permit them to digitize orphan works, which comprise 40% of their in-copyright collection.
A more controversial aspect of the bill (in clause 17) is the power conferred on the Secretary of State to amend copyright legislation to reduce online copyright infringement. Opposition to clause 17 has been bolstered by a group of members of the House of Lords, including Lords Puttnam and Bragg who tabled a motion indicating the need for greater parliamentary scrutiny to any changes in copyright law.
Gale Cengage
The Financial Times Historical Archive 1888-2006 is now complete, and available exclusively through Gale Cengage. Subscribers can search 790,000 pages including news, market listings and adverts and includes a scrolling timeline of highlights. Updates will be added annually.
Gale Cengage have also released a range of specialist collections for subscription, either digitized from their microfilm holdings or from content previously unpublished online at institutions worldwide, under the name Archives Unbound. They intend to enhance Archives Unbound with 25 extra collections each year, with collections varying in size (5,000-200,000 pages) and subject (supporting multi-disciplinary research in history, political science, science, ethnic studies and more).
Google Books
The second revision of the Google Books Settlement (dated 13/11/09) will be subject to a final hearing on 18/02/10 with the deadline for objections set for 29/01/10. One of the amendments of the second revision is the exclusion of most books printed outside the USA. Objectors to the revision continue to cite issues of copyright, privacy and the fate of orphan works. A motion to reject the revision tabled by Amazon has been denied by Judge Chin.
On 09/01/09 Google apologized to the China Written Works Copyright Society (CWWCS) for allowing snippet views of their works on Google Books. A statement appeared on the Chinese Writers Association website and Erik Hartmann, head of Google Books in the Asia-Pacific region, made a personal appearance on Chinese state-run TV citing a breakdown in communication for the problems.
In a surprise move Frederic Mitterrand, the French Culture Minister, has announced his intention to negotiate a public-private scanning partnership with Google, although he would reserve rights, “to exchange files without confidentiality or exclusivity, in total transparency and with total respect for copyright."
JISC
JISC is, “postponing all current capital funded calls and invitations to tender (ITTs)”, until the HEFCE board meeting on 28/01/10. HEFCE have been asked by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) to give “careful consideration” to how they will pass on funding reductions. HEFCE will make these decisions at the meeting on 28/10/01. Following the announcement of the cut in funding to the Intute resource discovery service, this can only provoke further disquiet among JISC's many stakeholders.
Newsbank
http://www.newsbank.com/
Following a procurement process undertaken by the National Library of Wales as part of the Welsh Assembly Government's Libraries for Life strategy, Newsbank have been chosen to provide local, national and regional newspaper resources online in Wales to public, HE, FE and health libraries, the Welsh Assembly and the National Library in a contract running from 01/01/10 to 31/03/11. Welsh titles in the collection include the Daily Post , the Western Mail and the South Wales Evening Post .
OCLC WorldCat
The WorldCat Mobile app is now available for the Google Nexus One mobile phone. On their website WorldCat lists their mobile app, compatible for Windows Mobile 5.0, Blackberry (Video tutorial), Palm OS 5.4 or later, Apple iPhone, Nokia and MIDP 2.0 devices. Other content discovery tools providing mobile apps include Summon (ProQuest) and EBSCOhost.
Meanwhile WorldCat has been augmented with 4.5 million records from the JSTOR archive, 4.8 million records from the Swiss National Library Network, and records from the conference sources PapersFirst and ProceedingsFirst.
Springer Science+Business Media
http://www.springer-sbm.com/
Springer Science+Business Media are to be bought by a private equity consortium consisting of Swedish PE group EQT and the Government of Singapore Investment Group (GIC), with EQT taking 82% of the holding. The deal will be subject to European and US anti-trust tests before it can go ahead. The publisher Informa had also shown interest in the purchase from the current PE owners Cinven and Candover, however this interest does not appear to be going any further.
In another agreement, the Springer Science+Business Media English-language paperback collection will become available through Amazon as part of their print-on-demand service CreateSpace. The books will be available for order online, and titles will be manufactured and shipped on the same day that they are ordered, ensuring they are never out of stock.
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