Hello
As some of you may know, Brad and I were in DC for most of this week, where
we werre joined by Mindspillage and NullC for some fascinating meetings with
people from the Smithsonian, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Library of
Congress, and the National Geographic Society. One of the primary purposes
of these meetings was to identify content that we can use for our projects,
including Wikisource. The meetings were very informative and productive.
Given that there are certain legal issues involved, I will wait for Brad to
describe in greater depth the outcome of these meetings. I will, however,
describe two meetings that may have more immediate results for the Wikisource
and Commons communities.
Mindspillage and I had a great meeting with Lawrence (Larry) Swiader, the
Deputy CIO of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. He has given us permission to
use any and all of the material created and licensed by that Museum according
to the terms of our license. This includes images, video, video transcripts,
audio, and text, including the new Holocaust encyclopedia that they are
building on line (in seven languages), and which they plan to be the most
comprehensive encyclopedia of its kind in the world. All they are asking for in
return in attribution. Essentially, although this was not said in so many words,
they are releasing all of their in-hourse material according to the terms of
the GNU-FDL. Larry was especially excited by the prospect of our people
participating in the translation effort. I would like to point out that this is an
outstanding repository of material, not just about World War II and the
Holocaust, but about other modern instances of genocide, including Armenia,
Cambodia, Rwanda, and Darfur. They have no problem whatsover with our translating
their proprietary formats into free software formats such as .ogg files.
At the end of our meeting, we discussed the need for a contract to formalize
this agreement. Brad will be drafting one to send to their counsel, and
things should be underway quickly. In the meantime, I encourage you to look
through their materials and see what is there.
The Library of Congress meeting was also quite spectacular. They also have
enormous archives which they are willing to share, but I am noting here that
some of their materials still fall under copyright so greater caution must be
exercised. Over the next few weeks, we will better identify what is there for
the taking.
During our talks, they made mention of the fact that many important
historical documents may have been scanned, but they have not yet been transcribed.
One of the repositories mentioned was the Thomas Jefferson archives at
Monticello. Speaking of this particular archive, they told us that the work was so
daunting that the Jefferson people (and other groups as well) have taken to
outsourcing the transcription work to India. I would like to suggest to the
current Wikisource team and additional volunteers that we jump at this
opportunity to help in the realtime preservation of these documents, which are of
enormous historical importance. My other suggestion is that we contact these
organizations in an organized manner, rather than as individuals, so that we
appear organized and do not duplicate efforts.
Finally, we have now contacted some of the most important repositories of
content in the United States and we were welcomed by them. I encourage
Wikimedians in other countries, representing other languages, to make the same
coordinated effort with their local repositories in their respective languages.
More to come,
Danny