[Foundation-l] Re: Hosting scans of the 1911 Britannica onWikimedia

Fri Nov 11 01:30:40 UTC 2005

Robert Scott Horning wrote:

> What???  Wikimedia Commons is the best place for images, and indeed 
> there have already been several scans of this encyclopedia that have 
> been put into Wikimedia projects.  We don't need to use bit torrents 
> unless this is a move to do bit torrents for all Wikimedia projects 
> (perhaps a good idea but a seperate discussion).  There is also a 
> license tag that has been specifically established on commons just for 
> content from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Brittanica because of the large 
> number of potential images that can come from this source.  Look them 
> up right now with the associated categories at 
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template%3APD-Britannica 

There are only 8.  The tag shows them as from the 12th or earlier.  
That's technically correct, but not very helpful.  The two that I looked 
at, for the abacus and the map of Africa were from earlier editions.  
The abacus (as used in Wikisource) was from the 9th; strangely, the 
picture was repeated in the 11th, but with an introduced error!  The map 
of Africa in 1890 is not from the 11th edition, and the 9th edition was 
complete in 1889.  It's presumably from one of the supplementary volumes 
that went into the 10th edition, but that would need to be checked out.  
It would be interesting to trace the development of the various articles 
over all the editions.  ;-)

There is probably a distinction to be made between the images and the 
page scans.  The page scan serves a different purpose from the 
illustrations.  If the resolution on a page scan is good enough to allow 
the text to be read that's all we need.  The general layout of the page, 
including the placement of images, does not need higher resolution.  The 
images themselves may need higher resolution; I find some of them in the 
hard copy fairly difficult to follow.  The Wikisource layout is not 
restricted by EB's layout; that's an advantage of the Wiki not being paper.

I understand too that the commons has been growing fast with an average 
file size that is much larger than what we would find in a text bsed 
project.  In principle I think that these scans do belong in the 
Commons, but if any kind of division is needed a logical split would be 
by having text page scans in something like a Wikiscan project. 

> That trying to organize the content onto a Wiki has been difficult, 
> yes. It may also be a good idea to access a direct scan of the image 
> to compare against the transcribed text.  The real question is if the 
> contents of a whole DVD ought to be moved to commons or not, 
> especially if the source of the scans is in the public domain. 

Another thing to keep in mind is that the preferred organization in the 
Commons and Wikisource.  For the commons a listing by page makes most 
sense.  For Wikisource a by article listing makes more sense 
irrespective of whether an article is only a short paragraph or 100 pages.

> That is the real issue here, because you can copyright a scan of an 
> image.  

Not usually, because it lacks originality

Ec