behind AotW

In Google Books: Is it Good for History? in the latest Perspectives–the journal of the American Historical Association (AHA)–Robert Townsend reprises his April AHA blog post with

The Google Books project promises to open up a vast amount of older literature, but a closer look at the material on the site raises real worries about how well it can fulfill that promise and the potential costs to history scholarship and teaching.

I think he misses the point; and yes, the Google Books project is good for History …

The US National Archives has inked another commercial deal to sell public domain materials. In this case, film and video. The “non-exclusive” agreement is with Amazon.com’s CustomFlix Labs, who will let you initially buy on-demand DVDs of any of “thousands” of Universal Newsreels, dating from 1920 to 1967 from the Archives collection.

This is similar in feel to the earlier deal with Footnote, from whom you can buy online access to historic documents and photographs from the Archives.

Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein spins it this way:

Our initiative with CustomFlix Labs will reap major benefits for the public-at-large and for the National Archives. While the public can come to our College Park, MD research room to view films and even copy them at no charge, this new program will make our holdings much more accessible to millions of people who cannot travel to the Washington, DC area. CustomFlix Labs DVD on Demand will provide the National Archives with digital reference and preservation copies of the films that are sold on Amazon.com. This is an important contribution to our preservation program.

The Archivist fails to mention why it’s necessary for the US Government agency to make a commercial deal and charge the public to get these benefits.

Perhaps the Archives could take a lesson from the Library of Congress’ highly successful American Memory program for tips about how to make archival works available online without charging the public for them.

Or ask advice of the folks at the Internet Archives, who already have over 600 of these same vintage newsreels up and freely available.

See the NARA Press Release of 30 July 2007.

_________________

Added 3 August

Apparently American Historical Association blogger Andrew Britt thinks the deal is a good idea, too.

I’ve also just seen the Washington Post article on the subject.

Nina Gilden Seavey, an “Emmy-winning filmmaker and director of the Documentary Center at George Washington University” is quoted in that piece, noting the key issue with which the Archives is dealing:

Ultimately, the accessibility of the collections and the maintenance of the collections has become such a huge burden on the federal government, the question is how to provide some sort of self-sustaining mechanism for use of these collections.

I agree this is a burden. A burden however, that comes with the mission of the agency.

In the face of scarce resources, apparently the only option considered was commercializing the collection.

That’s my gripe here.

Welcome to the third Military History Carnival! Here you’ll find a random and eclectic selection of recent blog posts talking about military history of one kind or another. These are hardly an exhaustive survey of all military history posts, obviously, but may point you to new time sinks for future enjoyment.

Saddle up!

The 21st Century has been getting in the way of the 19th around me, more’s the pity, as I have been blessed with showers of Antietam-related material recently. Two of these cloudbursts just coincided; Colonel William B. Goodrich of New York at the focus.

Fellow blogger and Antietam Ranger John David Hoptak kindly sent me his biography of the Colonel, freshly written for the Antietam Volunteer Newsletter, to fill a gap on AotW. It’s up now. It is very fine.

Goodrich has the unfortunate distinction of being the only Union Brigade Commander killed in action at Antietam. Formerly commanding the 60th New York Infantry, as senior Colonel he was put in charge of his Brigade in the XII Corps on 16 September, the day before the battle.

It was back in February that I first saw the Colonel’s face, however, courtesy of the first of a series of emails full of local newspaper lore and her own research from avid genealogist Connie Sterner. Connie is master of the North Country (NY) history site, which apparently began, as these things do, as a small project and got completely out of hand!

When it rains, it pours goes the old saw. For the last couple of weeks I’ve been up to my ear lobes in two proposal writing projects. I expect two more by the end of March. The normal pace is two in a year. These are good for business, but hard on my personal and online lives.

This time crunch has tightly focused the effort I told you about in a December post about an off-the-shelf content management system (CMS) as basis for a website. To recap: I’m working a pro bono project to help a worthy historical non-profit upgrade their online presence. Last we talked I had built a demo website on WordPress and was planning to migrate to the more sophisticated Textpattern platform.

I just won’t have time for that anytime soon, and the non-profit wants to publish fast. So, after some reassuring research, I’ve decided to stick with WordPress and avoid the learning curve and rework needed to implement on Textpattern.

Why?

First, there is an array of proven plugins and custom modules available for WordPress to meet all the likely business needs of the client. Just ask Lorelle, for instance. Sure, there is danger that too many plugins or widgets will result in Lego architecture, but for the few functions we’re considering, I think the maintenance burden will be low.

Second, the client wants to implement new functions and features iteratively–one at a time at a moderate pace–so I will have opportunity to write custom PHP within the WordPress framework or bite the bullet and convert to a new platform later, if worst comes to worst.

It comes down to the fastest and easiest way to get function online with minimum investment.

I’d appreciate hearing from anyone with similar projects: I need all the advice I can get! I’ll keep you up on how it goes …