Rescuing Australia’s lost literary treasures

From Pursuit by The University of Melbourne:

Have you ever gone looking for a particular book and discovered it can’t be found for love nor money?

If so, that’s no surprise. Most Australian books written are now out-of-print and unavailable to readers.

When books go out of print, authors usually have the right to reclaim their copyrights. But what then? Digitising books is expensive, and authors who make that investment and start selling them online (via Amazon, for example) often find that they sink without a trace.

And they can’t make them available in libraries, because those licensing arrangements are all built to go through publishers.

In a new collaboration between authors, libraries and researchers, we’re setting out to change all that.

Untapped: the Australian Literary Heritage Project is creating the infrastructure necessary to rescue Australia’s lost literary treasures and bring them properly back to life.

Working with a national team of library collections experts, we’re building a list of culturally-important lost books, then working with authors to digitise them, license them into libraries, and make them available for sale.

read more here @ Pursuit by The University of Melbourne

US College Students Just Want Normal Libraries

From The Atlantic:

Yet much of the glitz may be just that—glitz. Survey data and experts suggest that students generally appreciate libraries most for their simple, traditional offerings: a quiet place to study or collaborate on a group project, the ability to print research papers, and access to books. Notably, many students say they like relying on librarians to help them track down hard-to-find texts or navigate scholarly journal databases. “Google can bring you back 100,000 answers,” as the writer Neil Gaiman once said. “A librarian can bring you back the right one.”

read more @ The Atlantic

The Merryland books and other medieval 'obscene' materials have been digitised for archive

From Times of India:

Many libraries and such institutions have kept some material from public viewing because their content were considered obscene or too sexual. However many institutions agreed to have these collections digitised for the Archives of Sexuality & Gender, Part III: Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Centuries.

Archives of Sexuality & Gender is a series of old documents pertaining to gender and sexuality which have been collected for further study. According to their website, this "collection brings together approximately 1.5 million pages of primary sources on social, political, health, and legal issues impacting LGBTQ communities around the world. The first part was on LGBTQ history and culture Since 1940; the second part provided insight into underrepresented and often excluded communities; and third part includes materials from 1600-1940 and focuses on "fertility and sexual practice; prostitution, religion and sexuality; the medical and legal construction of sexualities and the rise of sexology." according to their press release. The newly digtised material was published in it's third section.

read more here @ Times of India

UCLA Library to host digital archive of ancient Arabic and Syriac manuscripts

From UCLA Newsroom:

The UCLA Library and Early Manuscripts Electronic Library have partnered with St. Catherine’s Monastery to digitize and publish online on an open access basis some 1,100 rare and unique Syriac and Arabic manuscripts dating from the fourth to the 17th centuries.

A UNESCO World Heritage site located in a region of the Sinai Peninsula sacred to Christianity, Islam and Judaism, St. Catherine’s Monastery houses a collection of ancient and medieval manuscripts second only to that of the Vatican Library. Some 400,000 images will be created, including of works from Syriac literate culture, which flourished between the third and eighth centuries, and Christian Arabic literature, which appeared in the eighth century as Christian communities adapted to the spread of Islam.

read more here @ UCLA Newsroom