My bibliographer for cinema just sent this out. I thought the list
might like to read it, too. Unfortunately, they're being pretty
conservative in defining public domain. I haven't played with this
much, but I did notice that the oft-taught Photoplay by Munsterberg
is available. I'll bet there's plenty more.
Markus Nornes
University of Michigan
+++++++++++++++++++
From: [log in to unmask]
Subject: MBooks and Google Book Search
Date: August 31, 2006 6:55:26 PM GMT-04:00
To: [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask]
Dear SAC Faculty and Graduate Students,
I wanted to share some exciting news with you concerning the first
phase of the digitization of the UM University Library's print
collection by Google.
As of August 31, the University Library version of materials scanned
so far through our partnership with Google, which we're calling
"MBooks", has been released to the public. Both the MBooks and
Google versions are directly accessible from the records found in our
Mirlyn catalog for particular books and journals.
As you may know, works clearly in the public domain are fully
accessible, while works still under copyright, or with rights
remaining to be determined, are viewable either as snippets (in
Google, based on the first 3 occurrences of search terms in the
book), or as a complete index to all occurrences of search terms (in
MBooks). The initial definition of "public domain" has been
conservative, and includes materials published before 1923 (US) or
before 1909 (other countries). Over time, we can expect restrictions
on access to many more materials to be lifted.
The two different interfaces do differ in a variety of other ways.
Printing out-of-copyright works from MBooks, for example, must
currently be done one page at a time (works best when you switch to
the pdf view), while Google is making entire out-of-copyright works
available for printing or download. The MBooks version is
particularly helpful when looking for a known item, or when trying to
locate a particular journal volume.
I am not sure how many volumes are available in this initial MBooks
release, but it is very large (more than 50,000 volumes), and growing
rapidly. However, because the UM Library did not begin to make
screen studies a focus of our collection until the mid-20th century,
you may not find many fully viewable, out-of-copyright works directly
related to screen studies in MBooks. But you may find tangentially
related works, such as the 1902 and 1903 volumes of the journal "The
Camera": http://mdp.lib.umich.edu/cgi/pt?
id=39015023576955;page=root;seq=5;view=image;size=100 http://
mdp.lib.umich.edu/cgi/pt?
id=39015023576948;page=root;seq=9;view=image;size=100
Fortunately, ours is not the only library participating in Google's
Library Project--so in Google Book Search, in addition to all the
books scanned by Google here at UM, you can find additional fully
viewable, out-of-copyright works which *are* directly related to
screen studies that Google has scanned at Harvard, Stanford, etc.
For example:
"The Theatre of Science: A Volume of Progress and Achievement in the
Motion Picture Industry" by Robert Grau (1914)
http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC02779265
"How Motion Pictures are Made" by Homer Croy (1918)
http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC01885138
Both MBooks and Google Book Search provide links on each page to send
in comments. I encourage you to help us improve our electronic
holdings by making use of the comment links. You can of course share
any thoughts or suggestions with me, as well.
--Scott Dennis
(Selector for Film and Video Studies/Screen Arts and Cultures,
Hatcher Graduate Library)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Scott Dennis
Humanities Librarian and Coordinator, Core Electronic Resources
209 Hatcher Graduate Library
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1205
Email: [log in to unmask]
Phone: (734) 647-6484
Fax: (734) 764-0259
Web: http://www.lib.umich.edu/grad/guide/selector.php?id=1
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Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the
University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu
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