National Library of Scotland to Hire a Wikipedian

The BBC reports that the National Library of Scotland is planning to hire a Wikipedian, to help move materials from their collection into Wikipedia, and to help their patrons learn how to use the online encyclopedia.  They mention in the report that the British Library hired its "first" Wikipedian in May, 2012.  I wonder if other major libraries have done this?

Tip of the OOTJ hat to my friend and colleague Roy Balleste, for pointing out the article to me.

A Treasure Trove from the British Library

The British Library has launched a major new digitization project, the British Newspaper Archive, which currently offers around 4,000,000 searchable pages from over 200 different newspapers. The papers were published in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and date mainly from the nineteenth century, although some newspapers' runs extend back to the mid-eighteenth century. Searching the Archive is free, but viewing the content, either through the pay-per-view option or by subscription, is fee based unless you access the Archive in person at one of three British Library Reading Rooms. The project is a collaboration between the British Library and brightsolid, a British digital publishing firm. Digitization continues at the rate of 8,000 new pages a day, with the goals of scanning 40,000,000 newspaper pages over the next ten years.

Newspapers have been called the "raw material of history" by no less an expert than historian Henry Steele Commager. In the British Newspaper Archive, researchers will discover

Exhaustive coverage of crime and punishment ... Eyewitness accounts of social transformation ... Illustrations and advertisements ... first-hand accounts of [newsworthy] events ... and countless vivid details of how our ancestors lived and died.

At the moment, only newspapers that are out of coyright are included in the project, but the collaborators have secured "permission from one publisher to digitise newspaper runs up to the mid 20th century."

The British Library Steps in It

The venerable British Library has been accused of "undermining struggling independent book shops by piloting a website initiative that redirects visitors to Amazon to purchase titles," according to an article in The Independent. Independent bookstores in England, like their counterparts in the United States, have been struggling to survive because of competition from Amazon, which can sell books more cheaply thanks to its ability to buy books in large quantities.

The library's online catalogue lists more than 13 million of the more than 150 million titles owned by the library. The website's newly refurbished search system now offers browsers the option of clicking on "This item in amazon.co.uk", which redirects users to a page where they can buy a copy of the book from the online retailer.

British booksellers feel that the move by the British Library undercuts them and threatens the very existence of independent bookstores in England, despite their "cultural and educational value." At the same time, they are worried about the effect of tablet computers and e-readers on their business. The Booksellers Association has been lobbying the government to lend its support, and launched the Keep Books on the High Street campaign in October as a way to dramatize the plight of independent bookstores in England.