British Library scans

[Newgatenovelist]

The British Library have digitised some of their collection and made it freely available on their website (http://www.bl.uk). I've been reading them for pleasure and work, but I've also wondered if it would be possible to use these scans to record. Many of them are of books that are not available from the Internet Archive or Project Gutenberg, so the idea is tempting, to say the least. Does anyone have thoughts on the matter?
-Erin

[annise]

Does the scan include the publication date on the actual scan ?

Anne

[Newgatenovelist]

Does the scan include the publication date on the actual scan ?

Anne

They do include publication information in the scans - both the title page and in the catalogue, which is how I've accessed the volumes I've read.

Part of why I've found this so exciting is that some of their digitised books include works of fiction that are harder to get hold of. I'm particularly interested in nineteenth-century texts, and some writers who are less well known have been included in this initiative.

The scans are of a fairly high quality, and of the multi-volume works I've looked at, they're always complete, which, unfortunately, can be a bit hit and miss on various websites.
-Erin

[RuthieG]

You can actually find things on the British Library website? I can never find anything.

Ruth

[ScottLawton]

The British Library have digitised some of their collection and made it freely available on their website (http://www.bl.uk).

Do you have some specific links? e.g. for 'modern' pre-1923 books, I found http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/findhelptime/1901to1918/index.html but that didn't have an obvious fiction or non-fiction link...

[RuthieG]

I think you probably have to know what you are looking for. I have tried Pride and Prejudice from Catalogue Search and it is apparently available via 'Item Viewer'. However, I only get a black screen with controls at the bottom - no book .

Ruth

[Peter Why]

That's odd. I had a look at the BL site. There were too many references for "Pride and Prejudice", so I chose one at random.

I found this book:

http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/display.do?frbrVersion=2&tabs=moreTab&ct=display&fn=search&doc=BLL01014847954&indx=3&recIds=BLL01014847954&recIdxs=2&elementId=2&renderMode=poppedOut&displayMode=full&frbrVersion=2&dscnt=0&fromLogin=true&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1434093300723&srt=lso01&vl(freeText0)=Pride%20and%20Prejudice&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic


The digital item link (the second "Go" down the screen opens the following web page (showing an image of the first page in the book). It took about five seconds to open on my old machine (still running XP):

http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/lsidyv35c60da4#ark:/81055/vdc_000000006D8B.0x00000B

Peter

[RuthieG]

Oh, that opened instantly! Thank you, Peter. I must just have picked a baddie .

ETA And glory be! I have found more of E. L. Blanchard's pantomimes!

I notice, however, that our praiseworthy British Library attempts to claim copyright on items that are clearly in the public domain both in Great Britain and everywhere else. Shame on them!

This item can be used for your own private study and research. You may not use this work for commercial purposes.

Ruth

[Newgatenovelist]

Ruth - I quite agree that the new catalogue is not an improvement on the old.

The files are large, but the books can be downloaded and read offline, unlike HathiTrust. I will add that I don't live in the UK but I've had no problems accessing the site, unlike with Google books. I suppose for those reasons I've been hoping this might be another possible source for reading texts.

They also have texts that I can't access via the Internet Archive, HathiTrust or PG. As a sample I searched for Fergus Hume, limited the results to 'online' (on the left side under 'refine my results') and came up with titles on the first page such as The Gentleman Who Vanished and Whom God Hath Joined that aren't appearing on other sites. Obviously if these would prove suitable as recording, there would be more choice for readers who like a particular author/genre/period. On a purely selfish note, I could almost double my options for possible texts by a particular author in whom I'm interested if I could include BL scans, so it might be particularly helpful for other less well known authors as well.

Part of why I raise the issue now is precisely because I don't know long it might take to confirm (or otherwise) that these texts could be used by LV. Ruth, where did you find the notice that you quoted? I ask because when I looked (at 'about', going through the Item Viewer) they explicitly mentioned that they were out of copyright texts. The lack of clarity on their site certainly doesn't help. Would it possible to contact them to get in writing their verdict? I'd be more than willing to email and ask them for statement of their policy as it would pertain to LV.

Erin

[RuthieG]

I didn't see this:

Initially, we are providing access to out-of-copyright nineteenth century books which were previously digitised for another project. However, we hope to be able to increase the available content in subsequent releases. It is the same content as currently provided via pdf.

What I saw was this here: the additional heading at the top 'Show Acknowledgement' which has the copyright notice:

Pride and prejudice : a novel.
by Jane, Austen 1775-1817
This item can be used for your own private study and research. You may not use this work for commercial purposes.

That 'Show Acknowledgement' heading doesn't appear on the Hume novel. I thought I couldn't get much more PD than an 1846 edition of Pride and Prejudice. I must just have been unlucky .

In view of what it says in ItemViewer | About, I don't think there is any need to contact them to establish the UK PD credentials. We must however, be careful to ensure that they are also PD in the USA, i.e. published 1922 or earlier. (I have a sneaking suspicion, hwoever, that Google or Microsoft or whoever did the digitising limited their efforts to items in the US PD anyway. I just looked at Galsworthy, and The White Monkey pub. 1924 is not available online even though all Galsworthy's works have been PD in the UK for over a decade.)

Ruth

[smike]

I just wondered: it says 'commercial' use -- but LV isn't commercial (then again, LV isn't private, either). But if I read and record a book, that's private. Only afterwards it becomes public...

[annise]

The point is - we release our readings into the public domain. We can only do this if the text is public domain.

Anne

[RuthieG]

I haven't yet found any others that have that "commercial use" thing on them. I suspect the one I found (trust me to find it ) is an aberration, and that they built the facility into the system for the future when they may offer scans of copyrighted works. At the moment, they clearly say (as above) that currently they are ONLY offering scans of out of copyright works.

Ruth

[smike]

That makes sense, Ruth. For anything else I guess you'd need a library card or membership or similar, it wouldn't be available for all to see.

[Hokuspokus]

In Germany it is quite common that online libraries only permit private or research use of their scans. They invest a lot of work and money into the scans and don't want their effort turned into books on demand for money by some third party.

They can't claim copyright on a pd text. They can try to protect the work they put into the scan, which is a different thing.

We don't do anything with the scan other than read from it and link to it. We don't offer it for download or sell it as a printed book. Others who do what ever with our recordings don't do anything with the scan either. Therefore in my (non purple) opinion it is perfectly save to read from these scans as long as the text is published before 1923.