geni <geniice@...> wrote:
"A
collection of rare maps of Africa, dating from 1530 to 1915, has been
made available for free on the internet by Northwestern University in the
US. " Is this something we should be storing too? I think we should at least
make an effort to contact them about it...
The format with which they appear on the net makes them hard/very hard
to copy. Contacting may be only option
Actually, they are not hidden at all and copying couldn't be much easier.
Links
to high resolution TIFF files of the maps are readily available on the
information page of each map, after clicking on "More information". There are
113 maps, some of them on multiple sheets (files). I tried to download one and
got a 8000x7000 TIFF of 100MB with a decent speed. I can't imagine why such
archive files would be given if not for reuse.
I would not be inclined to have concern about the copyright of material
on such a database. I'm sure too that we have enough collective techy
smarts to do a decent job of getting good copies.
What I do wonder about is the ethical question around wholesale copying
of another site filled with free material. They have a role too in
whatever niche they find. They are already in compliance with our
mission to keep such information free. They have a role in the open
access market. There can be valid reasons for the wholesale copying.of
these databases; preservation redundancy could be one. Still, just
because an act is legal does not mean that that same act is ethical.
Ec