National Archives - goodbye to the thrill of holding history?

I have access to both Ancestry and Fold3. The quality of the scans are, in my opinion, quite good. Aside from Allie, I really know of no one that have issues with the quality. The scan quality are just as good when zoomed close in as they are zoomed out. Now, that does change some if you download a copy to your computer. You do have some degradation when you attempt to zoom in on those.

While I love using Archive.org the quality there is suspect at times. As I have mentioned before, however, those are merely uploads from another party.
 
If Ancestry and only Ancestry is allowed to digitize the files, then this comparison continues to fall flat.

If not, then who else has the opportunity to do so and give Ancestry some competition so that the have to at least do something better than the other guy?
The arguments and comparisons are flying back and forth with little knowledge of the accumulation by Ancestry and the details of the agreements by Ancestry with the holders of the primary sources.

I don't have the time to find the exact agreement either. However, it is my understanding that after the term is up the digitized info becomes "open source". This comparison will be like (as Ole is suggesting ) should be similar to Google developing Android to compete with Apple's OSi systems for cels tablets etc. Android is open and the software and Mfg developers in a short period of time have caught and surpassed Apple in many areas.

I don't think the digitization agreements were perpetually exclusive = monopoly.

Have some faith in technology, the free market, capitalism, the gov and the public goodwill. It is already leaps and bounds better than ever. Big Brother Ancestry does not control it. In fact Big Brother Gov has opened it to our modern tech world. If you don't want to pay go to the library, D.C. or your local Historical Society.

Smile! Don't frown as you look over your shoulder for squirrels. Look forward to the productive resources that are flooding the web with access to all without costing the taxpayer any money.

Let us celebrate the information explosion!
 
I don't have the time to find the exact agreement either. However, it is my understanding that after the term is up the digitized info becomes "open source". This comparison will be like (as Ole is suggesting ) should be similar to Google developing Android to compete with Apple's OSi systems for cels tablets etc. Android is open and the software and Mfg developers in a short period of time have caught and surpassed Apple in many areas.

Your analogy that the digital documents would become opensource after five years is a great one. If you or I wanted to we could take the digital content from the NARA (after the exclusive period has ended) and repackage and offer them for sale. In fact with the B&W images from the NARA and the LOC that is exactly what I do. I take and restore and then colorize them and offer prints of the resulting images. But I don't even need to do that much. There are a number of companies that offer prints of the B&W images with no changes or even charge users to download the exact same digital version they could have gotten for free if they had done a little more research.
 
Last edited:
Have some faith in technology, the free market, capitalism, the gov and the public goodwill. It is already leaps and bounds better than ever. Big Brother Ancestry does not control it. In fact Big Brother Gov has opened it to our modern tech world. If you don't want to pay go to the library, D.C. or your local Historical Society.

Smile! Don't frown as you look over your shoulder for squirrels. Look forward to the productive resources that are flooding the web with access to all without costing the taxpayer any money.

Let us celebrate the information explosion!

I have the opposite of faith in the free market and capitalism. It is at best an undesirable state of affairs and at worst actively baneful to the commonweal. Edit: If I have to accept it, I do not have any semblance of support for it being "It's five years of them having exclusive access without competition". That has all the bad parts and none of the good of the profit-profit-profit system.

So unless Ancestry offers them for free, "without costing the taxpayer any money" is false. The taxpayer is still being charged whether its paying Ancestry or the Treasury.
 
Last edited:
I have the opposite of faith in the free market and capitalism. It is at best an undesirable state of affairs and at worst actively baneful to the commonweal. Edit: If I have to accept it, I do not have any semblance of support for it being "It's five years of them having exclusive access without competition". That has all the bad parts and none of the good of the profit-profit-profit system.

Capitalism and free market has worked great for a long time. What alternatives do you have and what evidence (since this has been going on for eight years) that this will not work? At this point there is at least three years of material that has passed back to public access.

Are you suggesting that Ancestry/Fold 3 not be given the opportunity to recoup and profit for the effort and expense they made in this effort? I think this is Capitalism at its best. The public receives a product at a reasonable rate and the company is compensated in turn. Sounds like a Win-Win to me (oh sorry, did not mean to go down that road again) :wink:

So unless Ancestry offers them for free, "without costing the taxpayer any money" is false. The taxpayer is still being charged whether its paying Ancestry or the Treasury.

If the contract states that it must be available at no cost at any NARA research facility, how is that not free? I would encourage you to find the nearest NARA location (see here) and see if you can access the records.

Have faith, companies are not all bad and government is not all good. As long as everyone does what is stated in the agreement it will be good.
 
Capitalism and free market has worked great for a long time. What alternatives do you have and what evidence (since this has been going on for eight years) that this will not work? At this point there is at least three years of material that has passed back to public access.

Are you suggesting that Ancestry/Fold 3 not be given the opportunity to recoup and profit for the effort and expense they made in this effort? I think this is Capitalism at its best. The public receives a product at a reasonable rate and the company is compensated in turn. Sounds like a Win-Win to me (oh sorry, did not mean to go down that road again) :wink:

This is capitalism at its usual level of "and if the public benefits, that's nice too". There's no reason Ancestry/Fold 3 should be making anything off of it, but then we'd have to actually have tax dollars do it,. And given America, I might as well suggest mandatory beer in schools.

If the contract states that it must be available at no cost at any NARA research facility, how is that not free? I would encourage you to find the nearest NARA location (see here) and see if you can access the records.

Have faith, companies are not all bad and government is not all good. As long as everyone does what is stated in the agreement it will be good.
If the contract states that it must be so available freely instead of Ancestry being allowed to charge for access to the records, that would be good. It would be even better if it was even more available beyond just those locations and still not for profit.

So "Have faith"?

I respect your right to disagree with me, I do not respect being told that I should just believe in the system designed with the sole intent of producing as much profit as possible as somehow comparable to a good thing for the public.

I don't think government is all good, but I have - on a good day - no fondness for business. The more this becomes something where I should be glad that they're making money off of this, the more I'm going to point out how far from glad I am that Ancestry/Fold 3 is profiting here.

Long rant short: Good is something that ends in the positives. "Ancestry/Fold 3 is richer" is not an element of that for anyone except Ancestry/Fold 3.
 
Last edited:
I respect your right to disagree with me, I do not respect being told that I should just believe in the system designed with the sole intent of producing as much profit as possible is somehow comparable to a good thing for the public.

My apologies if you felt that you felt I was trying to say to believe in the system. I was trying to say that since this has been going on for many years, show me that it is not working. I don't see any evidence.

It is clear that there will not be agreement and I have made my case as best I can. I am done here. Thank you for your time.
 
My apologies if you felt that you felt I was trying to say to believe in the system. I was trying to say that since this has been going on for many years, show me that it is not working. I don't see any evidence.

It is clear that there will not be agreement and I have made my case as best I can. I am done here. Thank you for your time.

Thank you for yours.

Hopefully you'll be right on how this ends.
 
On the plus side, the pension file I ordered back on the 25th is already awaiting shipment! :thumbsup:
Will have to say I'm impressed with their ship time. Ordered my pension file on the night of the 25th and got it today! Just wished it included the information I was really hoping for but oh well. A lot of good stuff in it.
 
Back
Top