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Microsoft And British Library Develop Open Source Research Tool
,----[ Quote ]
| The Research Information Centre (RIC)
| Framework v1.0 released this week has been
| designed to help international researchers
| collaborate more effectively. Hosted via
| Microsoft's open source Codeplex project
| and based on Microsoft Office SharePoint
| Server 2007 Platform, the "virtual research
| environment" allows researchers to create
| and share content and also work on specific
| issues such as funding proposals, the
| organisations claim.
`----
http://www.eweekeurope.co.uk/news/microsoft-and-british-library-develop-open-source-research-tool-3306
How Microsoft uses open source to fight open source
,----[ Quote ]
| OK, whereâs the catch?
|
| Built on top of Microsoft Office
| SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007, the RIC
| extends the core MOSS functionality to
| meet the needs to academic researchers
| engaged in collaborative research
| projects
|
| Gee, doc, youâre not a Microsoft shop? Even
| if you can connect with these resources,
| youâre always going to be second-class in a
| group project that depends on them.
|
| Which is sort of the point. To Microsoft
| open source is not an end in itself. It is
| a marketing tool. It is a way to gain lock-
| in with important customer sets.
`----
http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=5822
Recent:
The Lost Decades of the UK Web
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| So, 20 years after Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented
| the technology, and well over a decade after
| the Web became a mass medium, and the British
| Library still isn't archiving every Web site?
|
| History - assuming we have one - will judge us
| harshly for this extraordinary UK failure to
| preserve the key decades of the quintessential
| technology of our age. It's like burning down a
| local digital version of the Library of
| Alexandria, all over again.
`----
http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2009/12/lost-decades-of-uk-web.html
British Library's Bitter Digital Milestone
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| That is: digitising content that is out of
| copyright, in the public domain, and then
| making us pay through the nose - us as in
| muggins public, which has kept the British
| Library going for two centuries thanks to
| our taxes, in case you'd forgotten - for
| the privilege of viewing it online.
|
| Thanks a bunch, BL, for locking up "an
| increasing proportion of the nation's
| intellectual output" behind a paywall,
| where few will ever see it: that's what
| spreading knowledge is all about, isn't it?
| Great work from a quondam great
| institution, more millstone than
| milestone...
`----
http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2009/11/british-librarys-bitter-digital.html
British Library Turns Traitor
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| This once-great institution used to be about opening up the world's knowledge
| for the benefit and enjoyment of all: today, it's about closing it down so
| that only those who can afford to pay get to see it.
|
| What an utter disgrace.
`----
http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2009/07/british-library-turns-traitor.html
British Library fears loss of history
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| Lynne Brindley, director of the British Library, said that data and
| information on our time that has been entrusted to the web is being lost as
| some sites close or the technology they have stored the information on
| becomes obsolete.
`----
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/623/1050623/british-library-fears-loss-history
Related:
No need to burn books you can't read - DRM and public libraries
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| As my correspondent says: "After all that I still couldn't open the document
| (which I've only opened once before) and got this. Now I know I haven't
| opened the document at another computer because this is my only computer with
| a printer - so I didn't open it anywhere else. I am never using this service
| again. The British Library, Microsoft and Adobe can go shove their DRM up
| their document delivery service exit. "
|
| This, let me reiterate, is a public body providing publicly paid-for research
| to a highly-qualified professional engaged in impeccable work for the public
| service.
|
| It is hard to imagine something more expensive, condescending, inaccurate,
| frustrating and enraging â nor something better calculated to restrict
| knowledge and broadcast ignorance.
|
| It's almost as if the parties involved actively want to prevent people
| learning. It certainly feels that way.
`----
http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,1000000567,10009526o-2000331777b,00.htm
BL = Betrayed Library
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| So the BL's idea of progress is locking down books - you know, those
| old-fashioned things without DRM - with patent-encumbered technology.
| That's "giving as wide an audience as possible the most accurate experience
| of reading the real thing"? Only in the minds of rather dim librarians who
| understand nothing about the broader implications of the shiny technology
| they choose. Me, I call it a betrayal of everything the once-great BL stood
| for....
`----
http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2008/08/bl-betrayed-library.html
Good bye, British Library
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| This is an image from the good old days. Microsoft's Jean Paoli hands over
| the OOXML specification to Jan van den Beld, the general secretary of ECMA.
| And you find Adam Farquhar from the British Library, the bearded person on
| the right. The British Library was instrumental to legitimizing the whole
| ECMA and ISO OOXML standardisation process as an 'independent' participant in
| the committee work. ECMA did a brilliant job to mature the specification text
| to get it ISO fast-tracked. Or as the ISO BRM convenor and recent consultant
| for the British Library Alex Brown reflects1:
|
| Ecma made the road very rocky though, by initially producing a text that
| was so lousy with faults.
`----
http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-61777/good-bye-british-library
Ecma - a case study for vendor capture
,----[ Quote ]
| A small network of people of ECMA International dominated the whole ISO
| process around OOXML while technical experts of national ISO members were
| impeded by committee stuffing, rules bending and political intervention and
| the general restrictions of the revamped ISO/IEC fast-track process.
|
| [...]
|
| On the right you find a picture of Jan van den Beld, back then general
| secretary of ECMA international who received the 2000 pages from Microsoft
| represented by its employee Jean Paoli (center). Jean Paoli is probably best
| known for taking the Microsoft credit for the standardization of XML. The
| other person with the beard is Adam Farquhar from the British Library, chair
| of ECMA TC 45. You also find the picture on the right in Adam Farquhar's May
| 07 presentation which advocates for OOXML.
`----
http://www.noooxml.org/ecma-and-vendor-capture
,----[ Quote ]
| And the company Griffin Brown, of which the BRM convenor Alex Brown is the
| director, sent out a press release 13 March 08 celebrating the 10th
| anniversary of XML:
|
| "Recent moves by Microsoft to standardise its Office products around XML file
| formats merely confirms that most valuable business data in the future will
| be stored in XML. â Alex Brown is convenor of the ISO/IEC DIS 29500 Ballot
| Resolution Process, and has recently been elected to the panel to advise the
| British Library on how to handle digital submission of journal articles."
|
| [PJ: A bit of background on the British Library here, but the short version
| is that it uses Microsoft, was a co-sponsor of having Ecma put what is now
| OOXML on the fast track, and says today it is "pleased".] - No OOXML
`----
http://www.groklaw.net/newsitems.php
British Library books go digital
,----[ Quote ]
| Digitised publications will be accessible in two ways -initially through
| Microsoft's Live Search Books and then via the Library's website.
`----
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7018210.stm
Britain: E-Mail Time Capsule in Works
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| Now the British Library is appealing to ordinary Britons for their
| e-mails, saying it wants to create a snapshot of British life in 2007.
|
| [...]
|
| The e-mails will be collated and indexed by Microsoft Corp., which
| has previously partnered with the library to digitize books from
| its archive, and they will be available to researchers before
| the year's end.
`----
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070503/britain_e_mail_archive.html?.v=1
Vista and British Library put da Vinci online
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft and the British Library have digitised two of Leonardo da
| Vincis' notebooks.
|
| [...]
|
| The British Library has created an updated version of its application
| called "Turning the Pages" which allows people to browse parts of
| its 150 million piece collection via a web browser. We heard how
| this works better using Vista.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/30/vinci_notebooks_vista/
Publish And Perish
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| Alexander Rose, the executive director of the futurist Long Now
| Foundation, worries about the impermanence of digital information.
| "If you save that computer for 100 years, will the electrical plugs
| look the same?" he asks. "The Mac or the PC--will they be around?
| If they are, what about the software? " So far there's no business
| case for digital preservation--in fact, for software makers like
| Microsoft, planned obsolescence is the plan.
|
| "The reality is that it's in companies' interest that software should
| become obsolete and that you should have to buy every upgrade,"
| Rose says. We could be on the cusp of a turning point, though, in the
| way businesses and their customers think about digital preservation.
| "Things will start to change when people start losing all of their personal
| photos," Rose said.
`----
http://www.forbes.com/2006/11/30/books-information-preservation-tech-media_cx_ee_books06_1201acid.html?partner=yahootix
http://tinyurl.com/yyjqoh
British Library calls for digital copyright action
,----[ Quote ]
| In a manifesto released on Monday at the Labor Party Conference
| in Manchester, the United Kingdom's national library warned that the
| country's traditional copyright law needs to be extended to fully
| recognize digital content.
|
| "Unless there is a serious updating of copyright law to recognize
| the changing technological environment, the law becomes an ass,"
| Lynne Brindley, chief executive of the British Library, told ZDNet
| UK.
`----
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6119043.html
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