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<DIV>Hello</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>As some of you may know, Brad and I were in DC for most of this week, where
we werre joined by Mindspillage and NullC for some fascinating meetings
with people from the Smithsonian, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Library
of Congress, and the National Geographic Society. One of the
primary purposes of these meetings was to identify content that we can use
for our projects, including Wikisource. The meetings were
very informative and productive.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Given that there are certain legal issues involved, I will wait for Brad to
describe in greater depth the outcome of these meetings. I will, however,
describe two meetings that may have more immediate results for the Wikisource
and Commons communities. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Mindspillage and I had a great meeting with Lawrence (Larry) Swiader, the
Deputy CIO of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. He has given us permission to
use any and all of the material created and licensed by that Museum
according to the terms of our license. This includes images, video, video
transcripts, audio, and text, including the new Holocaust encyclopedia
that they are building on line (in seven languages), and which they plan to
be the most comprehensive encyclopedia of its kind in the world. All they
are asking for in return in attribution. Essentially, although this was not said
in so many words, they are releasing all of their in-hourse material according
to the terms of the GNU-FDL. Larry was especially excited by the prospect of our
people participating in the translation effort. I would like to point out that
this is an outstanding repository of material, not just about World War II and
the Holocaust, but about other modern instances of genocide, including Armenia,
Cambodia, Rwanda, and Darfur. They have no problem whatsover with our
translating their proprietary formats into free software formats such as .ogg
files. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>At the end of our meeting, we discussed the need for a contract to
formalize this agreement. Brad will be drafting one to send to their counsel,
and things should be underway quickly. In the meantime, I encourage you to look
through their materials and see what is there. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The Library of Congress meeting was also quite spectacular. They also
have enormous archives which they are willing to share, but I am noting
here that some of their materials still fall under copyright so greater caution
must be exercised. Over the next few weeks, we will better identify what is
there for the taking. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>During our talks, they made mention of the fact that many important
historical documents may have been scanned, but they have not yet been
transcribed. One of the repositories mentioned was the Thomas Jefferson archives
at Monticello. Speaking of this particular archive, they told us that the work
was so daunting that the Jefferson people (and other groups as well) have taken
to outsourcing the transcription work to India. I would like to suggest to the
current Wikisource team and additional volunteers that we jump at this
opportunity to help in the realtime preservation of these documents, which are
of enormous historical importance. My other suggestion is that we contact these
organizations in an organized manner, rather than as individuals, so that we
appear organized and do not duplicate efforts.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Finally, we have now contacted some of the most important repositories of
content in the United States and we were welcomed by them. I encourage
Wikimedians in other countries, representing other languages, to make the
same coordinated effort with their local repositories in their respective
languages. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>More to come, </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Danny</DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>