On 1 August 2012 13:05, Andrew West <andrewcwest(a)gmail.com> wrote: The main expense would be the digitisation equipment, I expect, although that would be re-usable (we've been talking about buying such equipment for years, it's never quite made sense to do so, though). Alternatively, we may have a partner that would let us use their equipment.

On 1 August 2012 14:24, Andrew Gray <andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk> wrote: True, but their licensing conditions (http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/static/Legal-info.jsp) are incompatible with ours, so they are unlikely to make good partners for us. You're probably right, I'm afraid. Another idea. How about starting a public appeal to raise the money to buy the book with the intention to donate it to the BL or some other worthy institution, on the condition that they make high resolution scans available under an acceptable license. That way we get lots of good publicity, we're not gambling with money donors might not have wanted us to spend in this way, and we don't have to invest in a professional quality book scanner. Andrew

On 1 August 2012 13:29, Fae <faenwp(a)gmail.com> wrote: Slight amendment after thinking over a cup of tea - I would prefer to see it donated to the British Library (or some another worthy public archive) for the permanent public benefit, rather than resell. This fits better with the Wikimedia UK mission and the receiving institution might even help with archive quality digitization. Cheers, Fae

On 1 August 2012 13:49, Fae <faenwp(a)gmail.com> wrote: Much as I would like to say "we here at the BL would love you to pay for a new and exciting manuscript", I'm not sure this is the best approach for spending Chapter funds in terms of value returned. Grants for a third party to acquire material is a long way from the sort of thing we've supported before, and while I think you could just about argue it's inside our objectives, I personally have my doubts. (Look at it another way: If an archive had come to us and said "we'd like you to fund digitisation of this book", we'd probably say yes at £250, maybe at £500, and start laughing if they said it would cost £5,000.) The best model for cases like this would be to develop a method where we have an agreed partner who'll digitise culturally significant material at a reasonable cost (or a group who can do it in-house, but for material like this that's tricky) and a standing offer to fund it for certain classes of limited-availability material like this. We then approach the auctioneers or booksellers, talk them in to letting us have it for a day to scan it, and let them do as they will after that. One risk here is that the digitisation would lower the marketable value of the final item, but I don't know how we'd quantify this one way or the other. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

On 1 August 2012 14:31, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: The Internet Archive would be the best people to talk to about this; they've experience in deploying scanning machines and training individuals to operate them. I don't know how much the hardware costs, but it seems there's one installed at the Natural History Museum: http://www.nhm.ac.uk/natureplus/community/library/blog/2012/07/25/bhl-the-v… It might be worth talking to them and asking if we can train a volunteer to use the hardware on an occasional basis, during slack time, to run our own programs. They have the software in place to contribute copies to IA (which ought to be best practice for our digitisation programs anyway), and we can handle the Commons side ourselves; all we need to do then is source the books! I'm happy to contact them and make enquiries about this, unless someone else already has NHM contacts - anyone? *However*, this is the general case for digitisation of normal print works. For manuscript material like this - rare, probably very fragile, and needing careful curation during the scanning process - I'd be really reluctant to let it near a volunteer who didn't have training and experience. For a program like this, outsourcing it is really the best way to go, and it's certainly more likely to be persuasive. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

If only we had contacts in the Galleries Libraries Archives and Museums who have the skills to handle this type of artifact. On Aug 1, 2012 2:54 PM, "David Gerard" <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: