We have to see all of this as baby steps.  In 2010, I was at a conference in Paris where a regular visitor to the Vatican Library pronounced that the Vatican would NEVER digitize, much less release in any way, their manuscript collection.   A little over a year later, I sat in a meeting with the Vice-Prefect of the Vatican LIbrary where he outlined their plans to begin digitizing the collection.  

I was shocked that even these images have been made available, but this is probably becasue they are connected to the Lorsch Project.   

I would not say that this policy of contol will last.  I remain optimistic that all the libraries in Europe will eventually come around to open data.  It is a challenging decision to make, given the history of these institutions.  There is a lot of tradition and institutional intertia to overcome.  We must continue to exter pressure and demonstrate how valuable open data can be for scholarship. 

Jim


On Mon, Feb 4, 2013 at 9:26 AM, centrostudicomparati@libero.it <centrostudicomparati@libero.it> wrote:

I am afraid this is the same procedure as for British Library, Bodleian Library, Oesterreichische Nationalbibliothek Wien, Paris BNF and many others, even if these are public institutions and not private, as BAV is. According to my experience, one has to pay for getting and reproducing images of the mss such libraries preserve. The law for Italian (not Vatican) State libraries, for example, allows to give free permission just for non commercial publications under a given print run.

Best wishes

F. Stella

----Messaggio originale----
Da: cormierrj@longwood.edu
Data: 03/02/2013 22.50
A: "dm-l@uleth.ca"<dm-l@uleth.ca>
Ogg: Fwd: [dm-l] Jan 2013: 256 BAV MSs accessible on-line



Back in late 2009, I tried to obtain permission from the BAV to use one image of a folio from a Virgil manuscript as a cover or at least as a frontispiece for my forthcoming monograph, "The Methods of Medieval Translators (2011).
      Permission denied.
     -Raymond Cormier



Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Tab



-------- Original message --------
Subject:Re: [dm-l] Jan 2013: 256 BAV MSs accessible on-line
From:Neven Jovanović <neven.jovanovic@ffzg.hr>
To:dm-l@uleth.ca
Cc:


Hi,

regarding Vatican's copyright statement, I think that there are some
things that can be built, or prototyped -- e. g. a text linking to a page
of a MS like they did in <monumenta.ch> -- that do not infringe Vatican
Library's copyright.  Such projects, surely, risk that the link will
vanish overnight -- but the site does offer us (in German, I guess)
"Persistente URL" for its images.

And I guess that it would depend what we ask the authorisation for. A
scholarly undertaking, such as publishing an on-line edition which uses
BAV's images, should be acceptable, and they should actually be glad that
somebody wants to do this. Otherwise, why spend so much money for
digitisation?

Best,

Neven Jovanovic
Zagreb, Croatia



> On 2 February 2013 02:58, Dot Porter <dot.porter@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> "Neither the text nor the images may be reproduced, in any form, without
>> the authorisation of the Vatican Library, 00120, Vatican City. "
>>
>
> Is this from the BAV website? I haven't noticed that... If it means the
> BAV
> think they hold a copyright on the *TEXT* in the manuscript, that's totaly
> unheard of - and absurd! :s
> Or does "text" refer to the manuscript descriptions? In this case, fair
> enough.
>
> Marjorie, a bit puzzled :)
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Digital Medievalist --  http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/
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Journal Editors: editors _AT_ digitalmedievalist.org
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Discussion list: dm-l@uleth.ca
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Digital Medievalist --  http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/
Journal: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/journal/
Journal Editors: editors _AT_ digitalmedievalist.org
News: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/news/
Wiki: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/wiki/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/digitalmedieval
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--
----------
James R. Ginther, PhD
Professor of Medieval Theology,
Associate Chair, Department of Theology
& Director, Center for Digital Theology
Saint Louis University
-------------------------
ginthej@slu.edu
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