¶ History Matters, an initiative from heritage organisations in England and Wales (including the National Trust) has created One Day in History which it describes thus:
Make history with us on 17 October by taking part in the biggest blog in history. ‘One Day in History’ is a one off opportunity for you to join in a mass blog for the national record. We want as many people as possible to record a ‘blog’ diary which will be stored by the British Library as a historical record of our national life.
Write your diary here reflecting on how history itself impacted on your day – whether it just commuting through an historic environment, discussing family history or watching repeats on TV.
One can argue until the cows come home about their misuse of the word blog, but I love the sentiment here. I find the practical, mundane aspects of history fascinating, which is why Samuel Pepys’ diary is so compelling with his details of pub lunches, hangovers, legal wranglings and dance lessons.
I’ll be adding a snapshot of my glamourous life tomorrow, and if you’re based in England or Wales hopefully you will too. Maybe one day historians will find it a fascinating record of a day in the life of ordinary folk. [You may like to read Tim Beadle’s take on the copyright issues first]
And talking of a day in the life, last Thursday I started to take a photo a day for the next year. It’s not exactly an original undertaking and I’m not even the only person to start such as project in the past few days, but hopefully I’ll get something out of it. At the very least it’s a good excuse to play with the new camera.
Comments
1
Rich,
I was going to “blog” tomorrow at ODIH, but I didn’t fancy signing over my copyright to the History Matters project.
Grumpiness continues here.
2
Tim – you make some excellent points in your post. It would have made a lot of sense for them to harvest blog posts tagged as ODIH, and as I hinted in my post their description of this being a ‘blog’ is not exactly accurate, as it’s a one-off event, not a continuing production. I can forgive them all of those by putting it down to ignorance, however the copyright thing is more insipid.
As you imply, the History Matters people probably see copyight as being a binary thing, ie. they must have our copyright in order for them to use our writing. Of course a Creative Commons license would enable us to retain the copyright and grant a license to History Matters for use of our writing. Again, that’s probably all down to ignorance but with a more direct impact on us, the content providers.
3
Rich,
Thanks for the link; I seem to be the lone voice in the wilderness on this one!
4
That’s probably because you’re the only one who’s actually read the terms and conditions. As for me – I’ll still post to the ODIH site make my protest by flouting their terms and cross-posting here.
5
I just left my post on the site.
As is pointed out on the comments of the post you link to – the terms and conditions suggest that you’re just giving them a non-exclusive right to use the content, rather than full copyright ownership. Which is a bit confusing.
I wasn’t too bothered though, other than for the poltical point that they should have thought about it properly, as it was hardly my most valuable content asset that I was giving away. Also, of all the people to give copyright ownership too, the British Library seems fairly innoculous.
More worrying, though, is that I have no idea what’s happened to my piece now that it’s submitted. I wasn’t given a link to it displayed on their site anywhere, or any indication of what would happen. So not sure what the point is exactly.
Oh well…
6
What’s happened to a-photo-a-day, Rich? You’ve missed half the days already!
7
They’re not missed, Paul. They’re just not posted yet.
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