The launch of The Original Frankenstein, a Bodleian Library publication, took place in the Divinity School on 7 October 2008. Brian Aldiss, the well-known author of science-fiction, was the guest of honour.
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Tagged with “library”
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Brian Aldiss: The Original Frankenstein book launch
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Brewster Kahle: Universal Access to All Knowledge — The Long Now
Universal access to all knowledge, Kahle declared, will be one of humanity’s greatest achievements. We are already well on the way. "We’re building the Library of Alexandria, version 2. We can one-up the Greeks!"
Start with what the ancient library had—-books. The Internet Library already has 3 million books digitized. With its Scribe Book Scanner robots—-29 of them around the world—-they’re churning out a thousand books a day digitized into every handy ebook format, including robot-audio for the blind and dyslexic. Even modern heavily copyrighted books are being made available for free as lending-library ebooks you can borrow from physical libraries—-100,000 such books so far. (Kahle announced that every citizen of California is now eligible to borrow online from the Oakland Library’s "ePort.")
As for music, Kahle noted that the 2-3 million records ever made are intensely litigated, so the Internet Archive offered music makers free unlimited storage of their works forever, and the music poured in. The Archive audio collection has 100,000 concerts so far (including all the Grateful Dead) and a million recordings, with three new bands every day uploading.
Moving images. The 150,000 commercial movies ever made are tightly controlled, but 2 million other films are readily available and fascinating—-600,000 of them are accessible in the Archive already. In the year 2000, without asking anyone’s permission, the Internet Archive started recording 20 channels of TV all day, every day. When 9/11 happened, they were able to assemble an online archive of TV news coverage all that week from around the world ("TV comes with a point of view!") and make it available just a month after the event on Oct. 11, 2001.
The Web itself. When the Internet Archive began in 1996, there were just 30 million web pages. Now the Wayback Machine copies every page of every website every two months and makes them time-searchable from its 6-petabyte database of 150 billion pages. It has 500,000 users a day making 6,000 queries a second.
"What is the Library of Alexandria most famous for?" Kahle asked. "For burning! It’s all gone!" To maintain digital archives, they have to be used and loved, with every byte migrated forward into new media evey five years. For backup, the whole Internet Archive is mirrored at the new Bibliotheca Alexadrina in Egypt and in Amsterdam. ("So our earthquake zone archive is backed up in the turbulent Mideast and a flood zone. I won’t sleep well until there are five or six backup sites.")
Speaking of institutional longevity, Kahle noted during the Q & A that nonprofits demonstrably live much longer than businesses. It might be it’s because they have softer edges, he surmised, or that they’re free of the grow-or-die demands of commercial competition. Whatever the cause, they are proliferating.
http://longnow.org/seminars/02011/nov/30/universal-access-all-knowledge/
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Tech Weekly podcast: creating a digital public space
Jemima Kiss examines plans for a digital public space with the British Library, the Royal Opera House and the BBC.
How can we preserve analogue culture in a digital world? Could something allow us to view, research & remix cultural items? Jemima Kiss examines plans for a digital public space – a part of the internet that could grant worldwide access and create links between museums, archives and libraries.
Jemima talks to Richard Ranft of the British Library and Francesca Franchi of the Royal Opera House about the items and artefacts from their archives that a digital public space could open up to the public, and how the reach of both organisations can be dramatically extended to a worldwide audience.
Bill Thompson, head of partnerships at the BBC’s archive (but also of the Digital Planet and Click programmes) explains how the corporation could help build what is needed, and how it could work.
And Jill Cousins of europeana.eu discusses how similar project that is funded by the European Commission works, and how it has now developed into a full service.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/audio/2011/sep/28/tech-weekly-digital-public-space-audio
Tagged with guardian technology bbc british library digital preservation
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Closing Plenary | IA Summit Library
Tagged with ia summit library cennydd bowles
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The Map in the Palace
David Starkey and Peter Barber discuss the importance of maps in medieval and early modern palaces, and how they combined art, science, and power to enhance their impact.
Recorded in the Conference Centre on 14 June 2010
Tagged with maps british library david starkey peter barber medieval maps places
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David Crystal - The Stories of English
Evolving English shows very clearly that there is no single story of the English language. David Crystal explores aspects of its evolution. Introduced by Roger Walshe. From the Evolving English exhibition at the British Library.
From http://www.bl.uk/whatson/podcasts/type/talks/index.html
Tagged with language english david crystal british library
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Versatility and the Gloomy Stores of History
‘London Booksites: Places of Printing and Publication before 1800’, written and delivered by Professor James Raven
Lecture 2: ‘Versatility and the Gloomy Stores of History’, introduced by David Pearson
The 2010 series of lectures offers fresh perspectives on the early modern and 18th-century book trade in England. London dominated this industry, but relatively little has been known about the commercial environments in which books were published.
Recorded in the Conference Centre on 3 November 2010
Tagged with books publishing london history british library
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Is the physical library a redundant resource?
Ann Mroz, editor of Times Higher Education, chairs a lively discussion on the future of university and research libraries with Mary Beard, Professor of Classics at Newnham College, University of Cambridge; Clive Bloom, Emeritus Professor of English at Middlesex University; Sarah Porter, Head of Innovation at JISC and Martin Lewis, Director of Library Services at the University of Sheffield.
Accompanies the British Library’s Growing Knowledge exhibition.
Recorded in the British Library Conference Centre on 26 October 2010
Tagged with books libraries british library
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Ships and Shipping in Medieval Manuscripts
Joe Flatman discusses themes and issues in his book "Ships and Shipping in Medieval Manuscripts", including the social implications of the massive maritime technological development in the medieval period and the impact of Christianity on maritime images. Interviewed by Ellie Russell. Recorded on 29 May 2009
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Magna Carta
In this fascinating lecture to accompany the Taking Liberties exhibition, Nicholas Vincent – author, and Professor of Medieval History at the University of East Anglia – talks about the great icon of liberty: its background, its significance, and its various physical incarnations. He also punctures a few myths about this most legendary of documents.
Recorded on 24 Nov 2008
Tagged with british library history magna carta medieval
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