Universal Donate Musical History

The music producer Universal Music Group, has donated the largest ever collection of music to the US Library of Congress. The donation is of over 200,000 metal masters, discs and tape from the late 1920s to 1950. The Library now plans to digitise it and make it available for all online via a dedicated site this year.

Many such collections have been damaged not just by age and neglect but also war and many have now disappeared. A congressional study found only 14 percent of commercially recordings made before 1965 are available to the public and only 10 percent of music released in the U.S. in the 1930s can be accessed by the public. This collection will rejuvenate a tranche of musical history for future generations to be able to reference and enjoy.

The collection represents works by artists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby, Billie Holiday, Tommy Dorsey, Irving Berlin, Jimmy Dorsey, Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garland, and Dinah Washington and many lesser know artists.

It is hoped that others will now follow in Universal’s footsteps and donate their archives to the Library.

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British Library Opens Its Rare Treasures In Apps

You can now view 100 of The British Library’s rarest works on your iPhone, iPad or an Android device.



Search categories such as Science, History, Music, Literature, Religion, Map, and Illuminated Manuscripts and discover treasures you will not require white glove to handle. The mobile app presents high-resolution images of rare works such as the world's oldest bible, Nelson's battle plan for Trafalgar and sketches by Leonardo da Vinci. Expert curators can even guide you through audio excerpts and videos.

The Treasures mobile app is available for the iPhone and Android versions at a cost of £2.39 ($3.99 in the US) and for the iPad at £3.49 ($5.99). However, they can be bought before 24th January at £1.19 ($1.99) and £2.39 ($3.99) respectively.

You now have the potential to visit national libraries and museums, view rare works and do so on the move for what is chump change.

Cambridge University Library Digitise Their Treasures

Cambridge University Library has been a legal deposit library since 1710 and since that date has acquired a copy of each book and journal published in the UK and Ireland. As you can expect this means that the libraries shelves are expanding at a rate of two miles per year and currently house some 8 million books and periodicals and 1 million maps. Cambridge University Library now is embarking on creating a "digital library for the world" by digitising its collection.

The programme follows a pledge of £1.5m from Dr Polonsky, founder of the Polonsky-Coexist Lectureship in Jewish Studies at the University.

The library contains some of the greatest books published, including the papers of Isaac Newton and a number of the oldest and most significant Qur'ans ever to be uncovered, as well an eighth Century copy of Surat al-Anfal, the eighth chapter of the Qur'an.It also holds the Jewish Taylor-Schechter Genizah Collection of some 193,000 fragments of manuscripts as significant as the Dead Sea Scrolls and one of the most important Greek New Testament manuscripts.

If successful, further funding will be sought to add the collections of Charles Darwin, James Clerk Maxwell, and Stephen Hawking, along with other major collections in the fields of humanities and social sciences.

So with national libraries all starting to have similar programmes, The British library digitising newsprint and Google hovering up anything that it can, who will have the authoritative new digital equivalent of the library of Alexandria.

Publishing News in The 19th Century

The rich and interesting 19th century of British history can be now read online via the newspapers of the day. Some 49 national and local newspapers have digitised by the British Library with funding by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and technology from Cengage Gale.

Over 2 million pages, from newspapers such as; The Birmingham Daily Post, The Aberdeen Journal, The Daily News, The Examiner, The Northern Echo and many more. They cover the rich tapestry of events such as; The Napoleonic Wars, The Great Exhibition of 1851, The Whitechapel Murders, Urban Growth and Social Reform, the Crimean War, the abolition of slavery, the rise of the British Empire and much more. In 1800 around 40% of males and 60% of females in England and Wales were illiterate, in contrast by 1900 illiteracy for both sexes had dropped to around 3%. This was the age of mass education, reading and the papers fed the new skill.

On 5 January 1900 the Manchester Weekly Times advertised itself: 'All who enjoy breezy, healthy fiction should make a point of reading these deeply-interesting and up-to-date serials.' Serious news was central to the role of the press, but also the wit, gossip, and articles on entertainment and lifestyle were essential to their popular adoption, appeal and commercial success.

Access to everything bar The Graphic and The Penny Illustrated Paper cost £6.99 for a 24-hour pass with up to 100 downloads or £9.99 for a seven-day pass with up to 200. This contrasts with individual titles who have digitised their own back catalogues such as The Times, The Guardian and The Economist and cost in the case of the Economist Historical Archive, some £1,500 a year.

Is the service is purely one of archive, for the researchers that will use it or a public sevice to be enjoyed by all? It would be great if this wealth of public work were opened up free for all to delve into enjoy as a national treasure. Constructed as is we feel it will feed researchers who have specific topics to investigate, but will not encourage the public to merely dip in and enjoy.

Selective History

We automatically assume that the digital vacuum cleaners will hoover all archives before them and we will capture history in its entirety. This may be the case with certain collections but unfortunately not the case with many. We found a recent New York Times article http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/10/business/yourmoney/11archive.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&emc=th very thought provoking and timely. It covers the question of selection and whether by only digitalising what is the minority of archives, the future loses out on the richness of the contextual picture that exists in the physical form today. True, the physical archives aren’t going to suddenly disappear, but their richness may be lost as we see the past selectively in the future.

The Library of Congress can afford to digitise everything or in some cases all of a particular collection. Often the things that are hardest to digitise will be left behind. In the case of John Steinbeck, the National Steinbeck Centre in California are only planning to digitise a fraction of film clippings, letters, photos that give a rounded picture of the man and his writings. Only 10% of the Library of Congress’s 132 million items are planned to be digitised. The link below demonstrates some of the digital dilemmas archivists face.
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2007/03/10/business/20070311_ARCHIVE_SLIDESHOW_17.html
Although we now seem to wish to store every email, picture and event that happens today and often in triplicate, capturing yesterday’s costs money and time. Much of yesterday’s content has already been lost and even large media organisations, such as the BBC, have ‘lost for ever’ priceless footage. Who is responsible for archiving and ensuring that the digital archives are able to be read into the future ? Will we in the future look back at history based on what we find in wikipedia and Google?
In the age of the ‘long tail’ how many publishers have access to all their material (developed rights) and can promote these and make them available on demand? Selective digitisation sadly impacts everyone and we clearly still live in the world of forgotten back lists, back orders and selective reprints?