On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 12:13 PM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 3:02 PM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
So what happens when our editors start using their access to copy public domain works hijacked by JSTOR into Wikisource when the contract Wikimedia has with JSTOR forbids that activity? Will Wikimedia tell its contributors that they can't copy these indisputably public domain works into Wikisource?
Would such a restriction really be a major disaster? Limited access to content for which we previously had no access? Sometimes achieving a worthy goal requires a compromise, and in this case it doesn't strike me as an unnacceptable compromise (even granting full credit to your description of the status of things, which I imagine probably has some ambiguity you are leaving out).
Why does it seem that no one in this thread is bothering to even consider attaching to pre-existing university library access? Must we always reinvent the wheel?
That is an interesting possibility - is that achievable? Would interpreting an existing set of agreements between publishers and a university as authorizing that institution to grant access to Wikimedia editors be something that any major university is willing to do?
Something that DGG can perhaps comment on.
Nathan
Hi all,
Speaking as (the other?) professional librarian on the list --
I doubt very much that this would happen, since a) most libraries can barely afford the subscriptions they have to databases and journals; and b) the cost of those subscriptions is almost always based on the number of people served -- usually the number of faculty and students on the campus. Limiting the use of these databases to the campus population is taken very seriously, and usually done by IP access, authenticated through a proxy server by whatever login system the campus uses.
I can't envision a way that we could restrict access to the databases/journals that WMF could hypothetically subscribe to, to any reasonable population, when anyone can sign up for a Wikimedia account.
-- phoebe