Dear orchid friends, This is a status report on a couple of issues that were discussed here a few years ago when I was more active on this list.
As most are aware, Google Books, other vendors like Yahoo, and their academic partners have been involved in massive digitization projects of materials in the public domain and making them available free on the internet. Little attention has been paid so far to periodicals (serials). Quality is not always good (I've seen unreadable pages). Commercial vendors hold the rights to make this available to the world via the internet. Because of these reasons, a group of research libraries has established something called the Open Content Alliance to address the shortcomings of the commercial ventures. Several significant botany libraries (Missouri, Harvard, NY, etc.) have joined this effort. These are being made available via the Biodiversity Heritage Library (http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/), and already includes around 3,000 titles in various specialties of the life sciences). Mobot also presents the titles they've scanned at the Botanicus Digital Library site (http://www.botanicus.org/). I expect that in the next few years as they digitize more, and more institutions such as my own join, that these digital libraries will become very significant collections. I do not think it is unreasonable to expect in not too many years for almost everything that's legal to digitize will be done in a high-quality way by this alliance. I am also hopeful that they will also be able to negotiate with rights holders to do at least some of the post-1923 publications as well. I am happy to see that the AOS is finally getting the Bulletin/Orchids available on the web. As an institutional subscriber I plan to work with them and the serials vendors to ensure that our faculty and students also get access to both the print and the electronic versions. Sadly, I was not surprised that the previous venture ended in failure, and is an excellent example of why organizations such as the AOS need to retain full control over projects of this type and utilize only services that not only know the accepted standards but follow them. 'Nuff said. As an aside, I hope none of the authors of the articles sue them for copyright infringement because unless the author specifically gives someone else this right, s/he retains it. I trust that authors are doing this for the love of orchids and not to make money (although photographers may be another matter). I also hope that they have long 'ere now secured appropriate copyright ownership for new articles being submitted. Sincerely, Harvey Brenneise _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) [email protected] http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com
