due allegati per alcune riflessioni ----- Original Message ----- From: J.C. DE MARTIN To: nexa@server-nexa.polito.it Sent: Friday, May 15, 2009 8:34 AM Subject: [nexa] Tre titoli Tre titoli recenti (segnalati da James Thurman sulla lista del progetto COMMUNIA): DIGITAL ARCHIVES THAT DISAPPEAR (InsideHigherEd, 22 April 2009) - As digital archives have become more important and more popular, there are varying schools of thought among scholars about how best to guarantee that they will be around for good. Some think that the best possibility is for the creators of the archives -- people generally with some passion for the topic -- to keep control. Others favor acquisition, thinking that larger entities provide more security and resources for the long run. The fate of "Paper of Record," a digital archive of early newspapers with a particularly strong collection of Mexican newspapers, may be cited in the years ahead as an example of the dangers of purchase by a large entity. Paper of Record was purchased (secretly) by Google in 2006, and shortly after Google took over management of the site, late last year, the archive disappeared from view. After weeks in which historians have complained to Google and others about the loss of their ability to work, the previous owner of the archive has received permission to bring the archive back for some period of time, and resumption of service could start as early next week. While the imminent return of the site will please scholars, many are worried about what the incident says about the availability and accessibility of key resources. Writing on the blog of the American Historical Association, Robert B. Townsend quoted the late Roy Rosenzweig, a George Mason University professor who was a pioneer in digital history, on the "fragility of evidence in the digital era." http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/04/22/record JUSTICE DEPT. OPENS ANTITRUST INQUIRY INTO GOOGLE BOOKS DEAL (New York Times, 29 April 2009) - The Justice Department has begun an inquiry into the antitrust implications of Google's settlement with authors and publishers over its Google Book Search service, two people briefed on the matter said Tuesday. Lawyers for the Justice Department have been in conversations in recent weeks with various groups opposed to the settlement, including the Internet Archive and Consumer Watchdog. More recently, Justice Department lawyers notified the parties to the settlement, including Google, and representatives for the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild, that they were looking into various antitrust issues related to the far-reaching agreement. The inquiry does not necessarily mean that the department will oppose the settlement, which is subject to a court review. But it suggests that some of the concerns raised by critics, who say the settlement would unfairly give Google an exclusive license to profit from millions of books, have resonated with the Justice Department. The settlement, announced in October, gives Google the right to display the books online and to profit from them by selling access to individual texts and selling subscriptions to its entire collection to libraries and other institutions. Revenue would be shared among Google, authors and publishers. But critics say that Google alone would have a license that covers millions of so-called orphan books, whose authors cannot be found or whose rights holders are unknown. Some librarians fear that with no competition, Google will be free to raise prices for access to the collection. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/technology/internet/29google.html?_r=1&ref... GOOGLE UNVEILS NEW TOOL TO DIG FOR PUBLIC DATA (Washington Post, 29 April 2009) - Google launched a new search tool yesterday designed to help Web users find public data that is often buried in hard-to-navigate government Web sites. The tool, called Google Public Data, is the latest in the company's efforts to make information from federal, state and local governments accessible to citizens. It's a goal that many Washington public interest groups and government watchdogs share with President Obama, whose technology advisers are pushing to open up federal data to the public. The company plans to initially make available U.S. population and unemployment data from the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, respectively. Other data sets, such as emissions statistics from the Environmental Protection Agency, will roll out in the coming months. Google's Washington employees have spent the past two years visiting government agencies to urge them to make their Web sites, records and databases more searchable. The E-Government Act of 2002 required government agencies to make information more accessible electronically, but users have complained that many agencies do not organize their Web sites so they can be easily indexed by search engines. And some agencies, Google has said, embed codes in their sites that make certain pages invisible to search engines. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/28/AR2009042802... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ nexa mailing list nexa@server-nexa.polito.it https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa