PACER is the online access portal for “U.S. Appellate, District, and Bankruptcy court records and documents nationwide”.  Because the documents it provides are created by the federal judiciary, they are not copyrightable; because PACER is the only place to obtain these records, it is a critical link to those who need case information.  PACER also charges a per-page fee ($0.08 per page up to 30 pages in a specific document) for access.

RECAP (which is PACER spelled backwards) is a new, open source Firefox extension which appears to follow all the rules:  you access documents through PACER, paying all assessed fees, and you get your docuements.  RECAP, however adds two elements to the mix:

1. RECAP automatically uploads any document that is accessed by users of the extension to a public repository hosted by the Internet Archive.
2. RECAP will alert the user when a document they wish to access is available through the public repository.

On the surface, it may appear that people are conducting an end-run against the court’s system for providing documents.  However, a broader view strongly suggests that these documents are public, and that the PACER system is actually an exception in the realm of access to public records.

The Executive and Legislative branches of the federal government provide documents free to the user; this is an attempt to make the workings and decisions of the judiciary as public as the other branches.  RECAP is a fully legal means to provide information in a way that is the spirit of the law.

Further reading:

• The Case Against PACER
• Firefox Extension Liberates US Court Docs from Paywall
• Use RECAP to Bypass Court Document Paywall

Karen Coyle wrote an excellent post about OCLC’s delayed implementation of the records licensing policy.  An exerpt:

Those of us who promote open access must use this time wisely.

• First, we need to get some solid legal advice. It’s clear that OCLC can propose any kind of conditions in a contract and hope to get signers; it’s less clear that OCLC can impose a contract on members 1) without their explicit agreement 2) that covers data created before the contract becomes valid 3) that binds third parties to the contract.
• Next, anyone who has bibliographic data should release it “into the wild” as quickly as possible. Once the data is circulating, it will not be possible to withdraw it. One solution is to create database dumps and to upload these to the Internet Archive. They will be there for downloading by others, and some of the data may end up in the Open Library. Assuming that bibliographic records cannot be covered by copyright, all of this data ends up in the public domain to fuel innovation and creativity.

If enough people take advantage of this extra time to better understand the copyright issues as well as to provide the data stored in their systems to open repositories, the message that will be sent not only to OCLC but everyone involved with libraries will be this:

We are more interested in services and sharing than in ownership.  Our values and our culture are built from this premise.  Organizations and companies that wish to work with us need to understand this, and they need to provide services and sharing as their top priority.  Since this is what we value, whis is what we will reward.

Microsoft announced today that they are shutting down their book digitization project.

They also announced that the Live Search Books site will be shut down sometimes next week.

This is a disappointment in that I was hoping that the competition factor would push both Microsoft and Google to extend their respective projects further and further, thereby making that which we could access better and better.  Hopefully both Google and the Internet Archive keep up the good work, and that we reach the point where books are as easy to locate and access online as are many other forms of information (such as news, journals, etc.).

from TechCrunch

Wired.com has a great set of photographs detailing the process that goes into scanning books for the Internet Archive’s text  project.

The process isn’t what I envisioned… I expected something that would look like it came from the radiology department of your local hospital rather than that relatively normal Canon EOS SLR digital cameras.  Of course, to gain a bit of perspective, one needs to see just how upscale these cameras are

• Canon EOS 1D
• Canon EOS 5D

found via HangingTogether.org

Kind of an interesting application of the Zotero add-on for Firefox : the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University (no relation ) and the Internet Archive are working to create a storage for scholarly annotation of online documents.

The annotation would work through added functionality (in the form of a new button) on the Zotero workspace, and could create an entirely new means to access scholarly critique and commentary. Simply put, this will make one of the most interesting and promising add-ons even better by allowing the user to collaborate with other researchers.

Research 2.0 anyone?

from Open Access News

Additional:  note that this will also create an option to save an archival copy of an electronic document on the Internet Archive servers.  This centralized storage will also provide benefits beyond the initial commons concept.

additional info found on Dan Cohen’s blog

According to a press release, the Internet Archive has been granted an exemption from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), allowing it to continue archiving web sites, software and such.

Hopefully this is the movement towards more reasonable copyright applications when it comes to libraries and archival organizations!

from Open Access News

All right then, begin the list:

1) An article spotted in this morning’s paper that offers a great summary for those not familiar with the archive: Content of Dead Sites Lives in Archive .

2) They earned a 2006 Education Award Laureate from the Tech Museum Awards (also contains additional information about what they do). (from Open Access News)

3) And they started a blog earlier this month which showcases interesting content and their activities: What’s New at the Internet Archive. (from ResourceShelf)

The Libre Map Project had a goal of raising $1600 to fund their project.  Once that goal was met, they would open their collection of maps to the world.

They met their goal… in less than 24 hours.  Now the world will have access to their 56,000 maps via the Internet Archive.

Viva le Maps!

from Open Access News