There is a German folk song with the refrain "Drei Jahr muss ich noch warten, drei Jahr sind bald vorbei." I must wait three (10) years, but three (10) years are quickly gone. If ten years from now 70,000 early modern books are freely available, that's a great plus. If they stayed in their libraries, they might not get digitized at all or not as quickly. As public/private partnerships go, this may be one of the better deals for scholars in the humanities, and I would decidedly describe it as a glass that is at least two thirds full. Which is a lot better than an empty glass.
From: Dot Porter dot.porter@gmail.com Date: Saturday, February 23, 2013 7:52 AM To: Bob Peckham bobp@utm.edu Cc: "dm-l@uleth.ca" dm-l@uleth.ca Subject: [dm-l] Future of digital availability
Honestly this sounds like typical ProQuest - digitize holdings from a library, provide the library with copies of the digital files but have an embargo of X number of years before the library can make those files available freely (lucky library if it actually has the infrastructure to publish them on their own). This is only different because it's on a national level. I would blame the BnF for not arguing more strongly for the immediate access to the digital copies as I would assume the other countries in the project did.
This might be a good time to point out a new initiative, Reveal Digital (revealdigital. http://revealdigital.org com) which is operating under a new model which is accepting subscriptions while the digitization work is happening, just enough to cover costs (which are clearly presented) and the subscription costs depend on how many other institutions subscribe and the size of the institution. Costs are much less than "traditional" [ProQuest etc.] publications. After five years the publication will go into open access. The first collection is modern (alternative press publications from the mid-late 20th c.) but the model is appearling (to me, and to others in the library community who are already signing on) and could be applied to any collection including medieval materials. It's also a direct reaction to the appauling costs and practices of some (not all) existing digital publishers.
I do think it's important to acknowledge that not all libraries have the wherewithal to support the digitization and publication of their own collections, that publishers do have a role to play in making collections available, and that not all publishers are the same.
Dot
On Thursday, February 21, 2013, Bob Peckham wrote:
Any comments on this news from France?
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130212/17065121955/dirty-deeds-french-nat... nal-library-privatizes-public-domain-part-2.shtml
TBob
Robert D. Peckham, Ph.D. Professor of French University of Tennessee at Martin Chair, AATF Commission on Advocacy Director, Globe-gate Intercultural Web Project