Martha Irvine, History goes high-tech on the Net, Associated Press (this copy from the Tacoma News Tribune), January 25, 2005. Excerpt: '[W]hile the Wisconsin Historical Society contains one of the largest American history archives anywhere, fewer people have visited in recent years – 40 percent fewer than in 1987. More and more of them, including students at the nearby University of Wisconsin, turn to the Internet as their basic research tool. So the historical society and many other institutions with large collections are doing something they see as a way to survive: They're going digital – creating and uploading images of many items in their collections for all the Web to see. "History belongs to everybody. It shouldn't be locked away in dark rooms," says Michael Edmonds, deputy administrator of the Wisconsin Historical Society's library archives division. "It should be on everybody's laptops at Starbucks."...[Digitization and open access are] a trend that Edmonds calls "revolutionary" – and necessary. "Our future depends on us being able to turn our collections inside out – to show people what we have," he says.'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 1/26/2005 01:36:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
