Digitising JRA books by members

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  • 21 Feb 2019 16:04
    Reply # 7176904 on 7145611

    I spoke with the copyright specialist at Dalhousie University. (Halifax, Canada.) He said:

    Each country has its own rules. In Canada, after 50 years a book is public domain. If you cannot locate the creator or publisher of a work, you have what is called an "orphan work". In Canada, you can contact the Copy Board of Canada and apply for a permit to use, for a fee. This does not give you exclusive use, others can apply.

    He says England does not have one central agency. He suggested partnering with a specific library or heritage centre/society.



  • 19 Feb 2019 01:12
    Reply # 7172136 on 7167600
    Anonymous wrote:There are issues around copyright and the committee has been trying to find out if we could get round this by lending the books, the way libraries do.  Up to now I've had no success discovered how we can do this.  If anyone can help, I would appreciate this.
    My library contact gave me the name of a copyright specialist at the university. I will chase him and report back.
  • 16 Feb 2019 03:33
    Reply # 7168048 on 7159546
    Anonymous wrote:

    Just a dumb question:
    What you call digitising, is that just scanning the pages, and then making the book as a sum of pictures, or is the text extracted from the scannings? The last version would crimp the file a lot and also make it possible to search in the text. However, one may then lose the layout of the original text.

    I guess I would want both  -  the original scannings plus the extracted plain text for searching.

    Arne




    Hi Arne,

    When you're getting this kind of thing done, you can get both -- text-searchable PDFs in the original layout, and ebook variable layouts. As Annie pointed out, different types of books are given to different digital formats.

  • 15 Feb 2019 21:00
    Reply # 7167600 on 7145611

    The object of the exercise is to produce proper 'ebooks' that  can be read on an ereader or a computer/tablet with the appropriate program/application.  I suggest downloading Calibre and storing your ebooks there.

    When reading an ebook, you can search it, change the font size, add bookmarks and annotations and carry out various other things,depending on your ereader or program/application.  A dedicated ereader such as a Kobo Aura would be good for reading accounts, eg The Voyage of the "Golden Lotus", but not much use for anything that depends largely on its illustrations because (a) the format is too small, (b) you can't alter the size of the image and (c) they are in greyscale only.  These latter books you would want to read on a tablet or computer screen - and the bigger the better to match the original book!

    There are two major incentives to get our collection digitised: to preserve what we have against loss and to enable members who don't live in the UK to access our collection.  There are issues around copyright and the committee has been trying to find out if we could get round this by lending the books, the way libraries do.  Up to now I've had no success discovered how we can do this.  If anyone can help, I would appreciate this.


    Last modified: 15 Feb 2019 21:01 | Anonymous member
  • 13 Feb 2019 15:56
    Reply # 7162411 on 7145611

    The text of the books I had copied came out very well No hint of it being a copy. The pictures at the back, not so well. They looked like copies of paper copies from microfiche.

    I will call the library and ask them about their copy systems. Today, we are snowbound...

  • 12 Feb 2019 20:43
    Reply # 7161017 on 7159546
    Arne Kverneland wrote:

    The last version would crimp the file a lot and also make it possible to search in the text. However, one may then lose the layout of the original text.

    I would suggest that loosing the "original" layout would for many people be a plus. One of the things I like least about many digitized books is having to shift left and right or have impossibly small text as the only two options (one of the things I don't like about pdfs). Having properly formatted HTML can allow even a digital phone to work well as a reader where boosting the text size reformats the text to fit the width of the device. There are formats better than html (or are maybe a wrapper around html) that are better at keeping bookmarks. I prefer open formats rather than proprietary (anything) ones. I can often read the files inside the archive even if I don't have a reader.

    Way too many words to say that...

  • 12 Feb 2019 12:00
    Reply # 7159546 on 7145611
    Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Just a dumb question:
    What you call digitising, is that just scanning the pages, and then making the book as a sum of pictures, or is the text extracted from the scannings? The last version would crimp the file a lot and also make it possible to search in the text. However, one may then lose the layout of the original text.

    I guess I would want both  -  the original scannings plus the extracted plain text for searching.

    Arne


    Last modified: 12 Feb 2019 15:40 | Anonymous member (Administrator)
  • 12 Feb 2019 03:41
    Reply # 7159227 on 7145611

    I recently purchased, from a used book store,  a four volume set of books on the history of my home town, written by an amateur historian. He has unfortunately passed and the books have no index. I took them to my local university archives and made a deal. I would give them these out-of-print books if they would scan them and give me a digital copy. They did this, in a searchable, PDF format, first cutting off the spines. So, If you have an idea of what you're looking for, you can do a search. (I found reference to a long forgotten ancestor.)

    Some of our books might be copied this way , especially if they are going to deteriorate eventually. They could be reprinted on double sided paper and spiral bound. (Plastic of metal.) The covers could be something durable like plastic. Although you can't read the title of the book on the spine, the book will last longer because there is no stress on the spine, since there is none.) Meanwhile, the digitized version is placed in safe keeping.



  • 05 Feb 2019 20:37
    Reply # 7148699 on 7145611
    Deleted user

    At one point, there was someone at the University of Hertfordshire who was willing (funded?) to digitise books for charities at no charge. I've lost the record of his name, but an enquiry to the UH library might produce something.

    Simon

  • 05 Feb 2019 03:04
    Reply # 7147072 on 7145611
    Anonymous

    It would be tremendous to see digitising of our library materials get underway. In the previous discussion in the committee, as Lynda said there was something about equipment specific to scanning delicate books, so they don't have to be laid flat (or taken apart) – the high-end equipment that she referred to. Given the number and value of books in the library, this equipment would seem – to me – like a reasonable investment, especially compared with the incredibly high cost of having the work professionally done. Pete, that's tremendous that you are interested in getting into doing the scanning.

    One possibility could be to go ahead with the scanning, while we work out how exactly to make the results available to members. As Pete said, starting with books that are already out of print seems particularly sensible.

    Shemaya

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