Slashdot Mirror
NYPL Digital Gallery Open to Public
mountiealpha writes "The New York Public Library has digitized over 275,000 images from their colletions, and made them freely available available online. The 'NYPL Digital Gallery provides access to over 275,000 images digitized from primary sources and printed rarities in the collections of The New York Public Library, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints and photographs, illustrated books, printed ephemera, and more.'" Update: 03/04 17:30 GMT by Z : They're updating the site to handle high traffic volumes, but there is an informational page available with details on the site.
Are they still under copyright? What license are these published under?
Inconceivable!
Seems that Libraries have to follow certain guidlines in order to make these electronic reproductions.
e .php
Copyright Issues for Libraries When Digitizing Materials for the Web
When digitizing documents or other objects to be made available on the World Wide Web, a library first needs to determine whether the item is protected by copyright or whether it is in the public domain. If the material is protected by copyright, the library will need to obtain permission from the copyright owner before making the digitized copy available through the World Wide Web. If the item is in the public domain, the library does not need permission to digitize it and make it available.
more here:
http://www.mlcnet.org/services/copydigitiz
Thanks New York Public Library for putting these 275,000 pictures online!
As a re-opening present for this nice gesture, we will... slashdot you!
I wonder if Google image search has already indexed this (would help with the bandwidth problems).
Libraries are free - as in speach. You want free as in beer.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
That would be fine if the institutions were 100% publicly funded, but they're not. They have to make up the difference somehow - public radio and television stations have to conduct fund drives and court corporate sponsors and charitable foundations. Their information doesn't belong solely to the public. Selling additional products and services over and above the fundamental purpose of the institution allows them to increase the quality of their services and provide a few extras.
I don't know whether NYPL is 100% public or not, but it looks like they did get outside help in the form of grants for this project.
perl -e 'foreach(values %SIG){$_="IGNORE";}while(){}'
Oh yeah, got everything backed up right here. I'll e-mail you the terabyte zip if you want. Or just wait till I post it to usenet in 30K chunks.
Quote: "I don't get why publically-funded institutions can charge for their services like this. "
Kind of like paying to pay to get into a tax-subsidized stadium to see a sports event.
Kind of like paying tuition at public universities.
Kind of like paying for a stamp when the USPS was a part of the government.
Kind of like getting a tax assesment to fund the local library.
Kind of like paying a sewer bill.
Kind of like paying to use a public golf course.
Kind of like paying to get into a national or state park.
Kind of like paying your dues to the Lions, and donating extra for a certain project.
Kind of like paying the parking meter at the national mall.
Kind or like paying a toll on a public turnpike/bridge/tunnel.
Quote: "Is this fair?"
Response quote: "Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something."
These things may or not be fair, but public libraries charging for non-basic services shouldn't be a big surprise.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
Why people still use "cold fusion" for image stuff is beyond me... are the images all blobs in a database? A shell script could pump out flat pages updated daily -- voila, no slashdot effect.
I once worked on a *.cfm project where everything had to go through like 5 layers of abstraction before anything happened... and they claimed it was all in the name of uh, efficiency(!) (maybe billing the client efficiency)
"Due to the overwhelming interest in the new Digital Gallery we are currently experiencing extremely high traffic. In order to address this demand we are temporarily taking the site down to increase capacity. We are working to bring the site back up as soon as possible and appreciate your patience. Please check back soon. (For information on the Digital Gallery, please visit http://www.nypl.org/press/digitalgallery.cfm)"
Like my favorites, the Lewis Hine photos of the Depression-Era construction of the Empire State Building. Anybody who says photography is not art should view them.i nex/empire/empire.html
http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/spe/art/photo/h
Not slashdotted at the moment.
Well, if they ever get back up, I guess someone can .torrent the pictures. I'm sure most of you here are used to downloading pictures, especially ones that are "digitized from primary sources and printed rarities".
While the spirit of the argument is commendable, you should remember that the library probably *paid* someone to scan the pictures, someone to write the code and someone to implement the whole system. Probably a whole lot of someones, who need pay.
:-)
Not to mention the fact that they would need money for the infrastructure, systems and running costs. Now where would they get the money for something like that from?
Most libraries have just about enough money to keep the basic stuff running, let alone spend on something like this. So, unless they receive a fat grant for doing stuff like this, there isn't really much that they can do except charge for it.
Now, fair use would grant you permission to see the low-res versions, but they have every right to charge you for the high-res particularly since they invested money in bringing it to you in the first place.
While it may be unfortunate, I can see where they are coming from. Kinda inevitable, but on the bright side you atleast have something!
Hmm... NYPL wants to charge a fee for providing a high-rez image. That's fine -- someone has to pay the expenses and charging for delivering to me a public-domain image is OK.
m l : "If ordering reproductions for personal, research or study purposes only (with no publication rights granted) the fee is $30.00 per image." (emphasis mine)
1 .PDF) which explicitly sets prices depending on WHO redistributes the images and HOW MANY image copies will be redistributed. This is all normal and standard operating procedure in the copyright world, but again, aren't many of the images we are talking about in public domain?
However, quoting from http://www.nypl.org/permissions/newpermissions.ht
Umm... where did this right to grant or deny publication rights appear from? If I get a public-domain image, from NYPL or anyone else, I should have the right to publish it as I see fit -- it's in public domain, isn't it? Is NYPL trying to get itself copyright-like rights through contracts (presumably you agree to some contract when you order the image)?
Moreover, there is a use fee schedule (http://www.nypl.org/permissions/UseFeeSchedule8_
Why I should pay a different sum of money to NYPL if I want to distribute 100 copies or 100,000 copies of a public-domain image?
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
...is that you can pronounce it "nipple". Read: "Nipple Digital Gallery Open to Public." Doesn't sound so boring now, does it? ;)
And yes, I used to live in NYC, and my friends and I always referred to it as "Nipple".
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?