The National Library of Australia wants to preserve Troppo Armadillo in its Pandora online archive. It's a welcome compliment to the consistent quality of writing by Troppo contributors over quite a long period (by blogging standards anyway).
However, because there are so many current and past contributors, each of whom retains copyright in his or her own work, I think I should give all of them the opportunity to object. I don't expect anyone will do so, but this is your chance. Unless I hear from any of you within the next couple of days I intend to agree to the National Library request.
Apart from the minor ego gratification, Pandora archiving will be very useful if we ever again experience a major system crash (which occurred with a previous Troppo manifestation).
Absolutely no objections, Ken.
Oooooo! right up there with Andrew Bartlett, Tim Blair, John Quiggin and Margo! A Repository Bloggers knees-up at the National Library could be colourful....
I'd be delighted to be a small part of an electronic bookstack Ken.
Ditto.
Sounds exciting(but perhaps my ego's easily gratified...). Do they commonly archive weblogs, or is this something new?
Permission given. However this is a ridiculous exercise. I mean disrespect to our system of copyright not Troppo. Its a formidable task for Ken to be sure he's got everyone's agreement, and what if he forgets to check with someone or they object?
Ken have you investigated whether or not creative commons licences can help out here?
I want to write a column or post on this very point. One can accept copyright law's role in capturing reward for effort (though it should still be scaled back with shorter duration), but its 'default setting' is ridiculously hair triggered.
One should generally be able to copy anything one damn well likes if it seems very likely that it will not materially damage the commercial interests of the copyright holder.
Subject (perhaps) to the copyright owner being entitled to require you to stop the publication if they wish.
Very happy to give my permission, Ken. Does this mean we are eligible for CAL fees?? Because my articles and essays--both print and online--are photocopied and reproduced a lot, as a member of the Copyright Agency Limited, I get payments every year for each time my work is photocopied etc. It might be worth asking if this system is part of the CAL net too, and if so, maybe Troppo authors should consider joining CAL(it's free).
"if we ever again experience a major system crash"
Have you ever thought about a regular backup routine? :-)
Have you ever thought about a regular backup routine? :-)
I bags the blokes do the repository knees-up bit, and Sophie & I can be the doo-wop girls.
This is the current list
AndrewBartlettOnLine (Australian Democrats)
Athens Olympic Games Blog
John Howard : Prime Minister
John Quiggin weblog
Margo Kingston's web diary
News from the front (Anne Summers' blog)
Snurblog - Axel Bruns
The Razor
They're all arselickers!
Tim Blair
Triangulation - National Forum blog
Virulent memes
They asked me about Ubersportingpundit too. So I think the Library is taking a snapshot of Australian blogs in general. Needless to say, I approved.
This electronic archiving has been going on for a while. A friend was one of the first to have his website (as opposed to blog) archived some years back. I don't remember him ever mentioning royalties(he died suddenly a little while ago so I can't ask him) but I also though different sorts of 'rules' apply for archived material anyway?
Still, this may explain the person who has been methodically trawling through my weblog archives in recent days. Not surprisingly my dribbles are not worth preserving for posterity but I do want this comment archived for posterity though: I apologise for the sleep induced headache I gave the poor reader who read it all.
Cmon, Ken, if it's such a welcome compliment to consistent quality of writing, how do you explain that they want to archive the AGB? Clearly they want some nonsense, too.
And by the way, I asked about commenters as contributors and the NLA mentioned it's probably a good idea to put some note on your site.
Tony
If I want to gratify my own ego, who are you to deny me that small pleasure? But you're right. the whole idea of the Pandora archive (I think) is to preserve snapshots of Australian contemporary popular electronic culture, a bit like a cyberspace time capsule. So cultural, sporting, humour etc blogs are necessarily part of that snapshot just as much as more purely political or 'intellectual' ones. The NLA's choices probably have as much to do with the longevity of the chosen blogs as anything else, because publication over time provides a more useful and representative cultural snapshot.
What's wrong with AGB, Tony? Nonsense? Nonsense!
Nothing worse than a blog-snob.
I wondered about commenters, too. What if someone who comments frequently wants all their remarks deleted? Aargh!
"And by the way, I asked about commenters as contributors and the NLA mentioned it's probably a good idea to put some note on your site."
I think Homer's execrable puns would qualify as a standalone national treasure....
Hey they asked to archive TSSH as well. If the National Library of Australia seriously considers us to be one of this country's "electronic publications of lasting cultural value" I'm deeply disturbed. Especially since we're just a collective of bored people largely piss-farting around on work time.
On second thoughts, there's probably a PHD thesis in that. Ken can you see if you can get me a research grant?
The selection guidelines are here:
http://pandora.nla.gov.au/selectionguidelines.html#p6.11
They don't seem to mention weblogs specifically - perhaps they come under organisational & personal sites:
"Personal sites will usually only be selected if they provide information of outstanding research value unavailable elsewhere or if they are of exceptional quality or particular interest."
Heh. They nearly killed my server the first time they catalogued VM, though these days the server could probably handle the load. I also got an ISSN number back when any weblogger could apply for one, so that probably had a lot to do with why it was catalogued. I probably should put my ISSN number back on the blog.
Don't forget Nabakov's Comment-Essays, Geoff. Or should that be Essay-Comments?
Wen, there's nothing wrong with it; it's the highest quality nonsense known to blogkind. But yes, I am a blog-snob. Or is that snob-blog? Or snog-blob?
"Don't forget Nabakov's Comment-Essays, Geoff. Or should that be Essay-Comments?"
Tony, Nabakov is a national treasure.
Already done: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://http://troppoarmadillo.ubersportingpundit.com
Geoff - clearly you have never had to spend a night drinking with Nabs - National Treasure my arse.
I'm happy for my contributions to be immortalised by the NLA, along with everyone elses, of course. The Evatt Foundation has been archived there for a few years now, and the best thing about it is that the NLA goes over every page every quarter - great 'page view' boost.
Not that I can concentrate on any of this blogging stuff right now, given the mighty Tahs are on the verge of inflicting one of the great rugby massacres on those banjo plucking Banana Benders once and for all this evening.
Ditto, FX.
Driving Nabakov around at three oclock in the morning looking for dingy bars with Nab raving about Tristram Shandy is not my idea of national treasurism.
I fear Tony is gilding the lily here. The bars weren't that dingy, the time was actually closer to 2.40am and I was actually having a civilised discussion about which Italian town on the northern coast of the Adriatic could offer a decent mixed beer and lemonade thirst quencher.
Graham: I'm still arguing with the NLA about their refusal to assign ISSNs to weblogs (had another email about it this morning, actually). The next meeting of Directors is in Australia in September, which is the next opportunity to reverse their stupid policy.
cs- eat shit and die. I'm being fitted for a brown paper bag as I type this.
Dear Paul,
Bwhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
Regards,
cs
cs + football = nabs + shandy