Back to Odds and Ends

Every once and a while there are a lot of things going on but none of them rise to the level of writing a whole blog post. So, I try to cover a few different topics at a time that are really not connected to each other. So here it goes:

1. FamilySearch.org keeps adding these fabulously useful, huge, million plus record collections to the Historical Record Collections. The list just past 1300 different listed collections. All in one huge long page list. When are they going to truncate the list so it is usable? Perhaps start putting it on alpha pages or by geographic area? The list is impressive, but just past the point where anyone wants to scroll through a list of over 1300 items looking for something. Just a thought and maybe a question?

2. Windows 8 is supposed to be released on October 28th, 2012. After all the hoopla, the real question is why not switch to Apple and have all the features they list now? (OK, OK, this is supposed to be a joke, don't go ballistic on me). I'll have more to say about Windows 8 when I see the real product.

3. There hasn't been any further news about the closing of the Georgia Archives scheduled for November 1, 2012. Since when did information become a non-essential service?

4. The HathiTrust won a huge lawsuit on the issue of digitizing books still under copyright. Essentially, the court in The Authors Guild et al. v. HathiTrust et al. 11 CV 6351, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York; online at Justia (http://dockets.justia.com/ : accessed 4 Sep 2012) ruled that the HathiTrust can continue to digitized copyrighted material under the fair use doctrine. See Big Win for the HathiTrust.

5. In the same vein, Google settled its seven year lawsuit with the Association of American Publishers (AAP). The settlement terms are not public but it is supposed that Google is able to proceed with its digitizing project also. These two decisions may have enormous repercussions in the entire publishing industry.

6. The InternetArchive recently added the following to its collections:

•  Television News Broadcasts are now Searchable (350,000 of them!)
•   All of Balinese Literature now online and more books in the Lending Library
•   Japanese Tsunami Web Archive international collaboration
•   Hundreds of newly digitized Home movies and other ephemeral films

Just in case you read Balinese. They now have ten petabytes of cultural material saved.

7. Findmypast.com.au added the following:

• Over 56 million new Australian & New Zealand records
• 24 million passenger list records available to Australia/New Zealand subscription holders
• New World Collection brings the total records to over 1.5 billion
• PayAsYouGo credits for added flexibility

This is a big deal for Australia and New Zealand and anyone, like me, with ancestors from either country.

That's enough for now, folks. Maybe more tomorrow.