Newsbot Posted March 14, 2008 Share Posted March 14, 2008 Archive film capturing landmarks and significant events in the history of the Isle of Man are shown. Source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/world/...man/7297295.stm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldmanxfella Posted March 15, 2008 Share Posted March 15, 2008 Archive film capturing landmarks and significant events in the history of the Isle of Man are shown. Source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/world/...man/7297295.stm I'd love to have gone to this. Why do a press release on Friday about something happening that evening? Hopefully I might catch the screening next month. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skeddan Posted March 15, 2008 Share Posted March 15, 2008 I'd have like to have seen this too. At first I thought the link might be to a video which could be watched online. Hopefully after its cinema screening the video will come out on a webpage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skig Posted March 15, 2008 Share Posted March 15, 2008 I went and really enjoyed it. Big queue outside at 7.00Pm, pretty full by 10 past and full by 20 past, with a 7.30 start. The entire first half was snippets of silent private footage, with some smashing bits of the round the houses car races, especially the cars coming down Summer hill onto the Queens prom. Nice to see film of how the island was at various times. Lots of bits of the TT & MGP. Too many bits to list them all. Well worth a visit when it repeats at 2.30 on Saturday April 12th (and its free !!) Pity they only have one film night per year. They must have loads of unseen footage. 4 times a year, with a small admission charge to cover the wages of the staff involved, would be great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frances Posted March 15, 2008 Share Posted March 15, 2008 I suspect you can gain acess to a private viewing at Museum Library as they have a booth equipted with dvd player and I think they have transferred many of these films to dvd rather than risk damaging the original Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Tatlock Posted March 15, 2008 Share Posted March 15, 2008 Why can't these things be out into the public domain via the interlink - instead of left buried in the museum? The technology to do this is fairly cheap, and there are probably loads of willing volunteers ready to give their time to such a project. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frances Posted March 15, 2008 Share Posted March 15, 2008 try petitioning Stephen Harrison - however doubt if high enough visibility to get funded Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skeddan Posted March 15, 2008 Share Posted March 15, 2008 Why can't these things be out into the public domain via the interlink - instead of left buried in the museum? The technology to do this is fairly cheap, and there are probably loads of willing volunteers ready to give their time to such a project. If it's already digitised, it's very cheap. There's a great deal more that MNH could be doing in a digitisation online publication project. What Frances has done in the manxnotebooks is truly outstanding - ideally there should be support given to expanding this resource - the kind of initiative MNH should have been doing in the first place - shouldn't that come under its mission to promote and communicate Manx history and culture? MNH's website still looks Mickey Mouse at the moment - e.g. the laughable 1405 Bosworth nonsense is still on the site - (Frances - did you get anywhere in bringing this to their attention?) http://www.gov.im/mnh/heritage/story/kingslords.xml Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frances Posted March 15, 2008 Share Posted March 15, 2008 re correction - no, personal reasons have prevented me from returning to Peel as planned The main problem is copyright - Mickey Mouse + the USian 'best government money can buy' must take much of the blame for the current lawyers beanfeast re copyright etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nipper Posted March 15, 2008 Share Posted March 15, 2008 Why can't these things be out into the public domain via the interlink - instead of left buried in the museum? The technology to do this is fairly cheap, and there are probably loads of willing volunteers ready to give their time to such a project. I often get the feeling the Museum and the Trustees of MNH et al believe they own the museum and its contents. They are only the custodians. I know someone with a huge collection of film taking by their father and grandfather before that. She is now elderly but doesn't want to give the archive to the museum for fear that it will only be pondered over by the click, and never see the light of day for perhaps many, many years/decades. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skeddan Posted March 15, 2008 Share Posted March 15, 2008 The main problem is copyright - Mickey Mouse + the USian 'best government money can buy' must take much of the blame for the current lawyers beanfeast re copyright etc. I'd have thought if the archive owned the footage and can show it commercially, they would have held any copyright. True some material is donated and in custody - there should be some clarity as to terms - e.g. whether it can be displayed in such manner. Also if still in copyright it would probably be covered under 'fair use' - i.e. non-commercial, educational use - provided not contra to custody terms. However I do accept copyright issues can be a problem : the problem is often not so much copyright per se, but public bodies being risk averse and not wanting to risk possible infringement and litigation - even if not an infringement and is a legitimate fair use. In any event I think the most that can happen if infringement is non-commercial and not in bad faith is the rights owner can get one to stop using it - and if infringed commercially they can get award of any income obtained by infringement - in this case £0.00. One can of course get E&O insurance as well. Aside from that I still think it extraordinary to see the comparison between what MHN offer on its website and the resource that one (unfunded?) dedicated individual has been able to provide in manxnotebooks. It's virtually the unofficial National Archive online. It really looks like MNH are seriously lacking in what should be one of their core competencies. Perhaps they should outsource this and give Frances funding and resource to deliver the kind of online repository that there should be. (No offence Frances - but it would be nice to see this resource expanded with digitisation of other materials, and other things which I'm sure you'd like to see also). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frances Posted March 15, 2008 Share Posted March 15, 2008 Skeddan - I don't really want to labour this subject but to set any record straight all the funding has come from myself, though others have generously given some material + my hosting costs have been met - basically I've shared much of my library of out of copyright material - any sales of the CD rom just about covers my email + ISP redirection costs. There is much at MNH that I would like to use but since they now charge penal rates of 80p/A4 sheet for material copied off microfilm + 40p for any other copied material I've found my budget for material to transcribe somewhat curtailed (any photographic reproduction is generally not allowed - and at £5 or more for any decent repro from original then that is also effectively impossible) - however I have no criticism of the staff, policy is set from above and, unlike many other academic/CRO libraries there is no user group whereby feedback could be given. I agree that much more could be made available via the web - the additional hosting costs on the government website would be small but the cost of digitising the material is the bottleneck - some community effort at transcribing family history material is at www.lawsons.ca - and of course the Mormon filming at the Rolls office in 1944 means that much material of historic value is available via the low rental cost of microfilm at LDS FHCs. I have met several who have material but don't want to give it to MNH because as they say, no-one will gain easy access to it - the problem is that then material becomes scattered and the major advantage the Island has of a single repository is lost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skeddan Posted March 15, 2008 Share Posted March 15, 2008 Frances - that's a real pity - and a shame that this policy hinders further development of what is by far the best resource on Manx history and culture on the Internet. It seems so shortsighted. Do MNH not have performance reviews? Do they need high paid consultants to tell them these things? I know you're not having a gripe at anyone - but would be good if they got into gear instead of being counterproductive and neglectful of providing online resources. What you've done puts their efforts to shame. If it was elsewhere there'd be be grants to support the project. But it doesn't seem to matter enough to them to even give you free access to the materials. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Tatlock Posted March 16, 2008 Share Posted March 16, 2008 There is much at MNH that I would like to use but since they now charge penal rates of 80p/A4 sheet for material copied off microfilm + 40p for any other copied material I've found my budget for material to transcribe somewhat curtailed (any photographic reproduction is generally not allowed - and at £5 or more for any decent repro from original then that is also effectively impossible) - however I have no criticism of the staff, policy is set from above and, unlike many other academic/CRO libraries there is no user group whereby feedback could be given. Jeebus! I nearly fell off my chair when I read those costs. Can't you become more 'officialised' as a project and organise a better discount etc. or even have a word with a company about them sponsoring you a free copier/copier printer at the museum etc. etc.? I could PM you a couple of names of potential sponsors to try out. I very much appreciate what you are doing and would be willing to offer time doing stuff for it, as I'm sure a good few others on MF would also be willing to do - as would many others I suspect (especially including those supporting the Manx language etc.). Funny enough, we had a conversation about this when I was out at the pub the other night and met someone there that knows you quite well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skeddan Posted March 16, 2008 Share Posted March 16, 2008 AT - you could also have a word with MHKs - maybe Karran - about getting IOMG to 'sponsor' this work. IMO the smart thing for them to do (if possible) would be to acquire Frances' resource, and put her in charge of developing this even further. The amount needed to make this world class would be peanuts compared to what is spent elsewhere - given what there is already, think how far £100K would go to create a fantastic online National Archive (which would probably be award winning). IMO it's a sorry state of affairs if managing and communicating culture and history is dependent on volunteers because IOMG and MNH are inept at fulfilling their responsibilities. Next they'll be leaving it to volunteers to do the online publishing of legislation, and even then charging them fees for making reproductions of the original. Very understandably Frances does not wish to make any fuss about this. Still there's no reason why you shouldn't make a stink about the poor value for money that you as a taxpayer get as a result of this ineptitude - and the shocking lack of assistance for an outstanding non-commercial resource. As Frances notes, it is a matter of 'policy' - it's one that reflects very poorly on IoMG. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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