UK govt charges taxpayers to view 1911 census, conducted with tax-money
Fee sez, "The government releases the 1911 census in the UK today, three years ahead of the normal 100 year embargo.
The website allows family historians to search for ancestors using names and birth dates, and provides a lot more information than previous censuses, including the length of marriage, number of children, including those who have died, and more accurate information about places of birth.
That's the upside: the downside is that it costs 10 credits to view a transcript, and 30 credits to view the actal census return filled in by an ancestor... and 60 credits cost £6.95.
As a friend said, it seems a bit odd that the tax payer can be asked to pay for the original collection of the material, and then stiffed to this extent for access to the information."
Use the census to search for your ancestors (Thanks, Fee!)
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Is this really a concern? It's a bit pricey, yes, but that's a lot of data to digitize and make searchable, and I'm fairly certain that the taxes collected in 1911 were not sufficient to cover the cost of making the information available 97 years later.
Besides - I doubt any taxpayers who actually paid that tax are still alive. And if they are, they should get free access, dagnabit!
The website is run by a private company and has the information about itself on this page
http://www.1911census.co.uk/Content/default.aspx?r=79
The fact that it isn't the government should have been guessed from the URL not ending in .gov.uk.
It should be the government and it should be free, but there is no point criticising a private company for trying to make money.
Actually, as a British taxpayer, with no interested in looking at the census, I have no problem with them charging a small amount to keep the system running.
Why should I pay so that some people can indulge their hobby?
I'd rather my tax money was spent on the important things that the government has to do.
Paul
according to the FAQ's on the site...
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Why does the 1911 census cost more than other censuses?
The 1911 digitisation project was a huge undertaking , on a significantly different scale from all previous censuses, and the multi-million pound project was completed without any public subsidy. (my emphasis)
Because all the individual household schedules have been preserved, there are over ten times the number of images (around 16 million) compared to 1901 census. The census had to be scanned from the original documents, rather than created from film, which involved considerable handling and conservation of fragile documents, significantly increasing the costs of digitisation.
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So while our taxes were used for the collection of the data they haven't been used for the digitisation. As far as I know, you can still access the information for free if you go to local libraries and council archives.
So who is responsible for the digitisation if there was no public subsidy? Does the digitisation award them any rights to the material, rights which should remain in the hands of the taxpayer?
And it still isn't really the point, the government should be providing all public information in up-to-date accessible formats for all citizens. There are all kind of potential uses for that data beyond simple hobbies and a few million quid isn't that much to spend. If we weren't spending all our cash bailing out rich idiot bankers and bombing women and children around the world then we'd have billions to chuck at this sort of project...
I agree with Paul. Of course, in general I'm against the government paying for access to any of its data, but I think in this case with 97-year-old census it isn't much of a problem.
It's Thatcherism-Blairism in action. The public has no rights as such, only entitlements to service from their kindly overseers.
Next I imagine they'll abolish the public domain and set up an agency (run by the television license people or someone) to collect royalties on centuries-old folk songs and out-of-print books "for the public good".
It's pretty common to have to pay for access to census images worldwide.
Some of my family members are avid genealogists, and they pay breathtaking amounts of money (on an annual basis) to access these records.
Sure, you can travel to the originating county (if you can find it -- with a search function it eliminates this guesswork), find the archives, get someone to let you look at them (government archive clerks are frequently very helpful, but are just as likely to not be arsed), then find a functioning copy machine (sometimes a Herculean task) AND permission to copy the records. Many times, copying the records comes with a cost, too.
Most of the time, though, paying a nominal fee to access the records online is far more time- and cost-effective.
It's not a big deal -- you're only the charging the people who want those records, and not the broad taxpayer population...so I'm not sure why this is so gasp-worthy.
It is dire in the UK
UK economy downturn 'frightening'
Business leaders warn of 'bleak' 2009
Business leaders have painted a bleak picture of the UK economy, with a survey suggesting a "frightening deterioration"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7825213.stm
I'm intrigued as to why Google hasn't stepped in to take this problem off the National Archives hands.
I'm assuming that FindMyPast have paid the Archives to take the documents, scan them and make them available - charging punters to cover the costs of the acquisition, digitisation and distribution. Getting said punter to hand over X credits for every nugget of information they want is annoying - I for one am put off using it because the pricing structure is frustrating and expensive. And I'm not usually a price sensitive consumer.
Surely the amounts of money involved would be small change to Google - and exactly aligned with their goals of digitising all human knowledge. C'mon Google - help us out here!
The 1901 census was available from the UK National Archives... at least if you were a UK taxpayer you knew that by paying them you were (possibly) supporting their work. The 1911 census is being made available through a commercial site and they are making a profit out of what should be a public resource.
Here in Ireland the 1901 and 1911 census details are being made public free of charge through the Irish national archives site. It's taking longer to do but at least it's free (and includes the whole island...)
Like Paul, I have no interest in the data, so I have no problem with them charging to access it. If I really wanted to access it for free, I'd go to the National Archives in London.
There's nothing to stop another company from carefully scanning all the documents and starting their own service. This isn't the government charging, it's a private company processing the data and charging for the easier access.
I'm sorry, now you're just complaining for the sake of it. Like Paul said, most people won't be using this, so does it really seem fair to tax everyone to keep a system running that is little more than a resource for hobbyists? Someone has to pay for it, and if it's not the people who use it, it will be everyone.
A small point: this is the census data for England, Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, rather than all of the 1911 census data. The Scottish data will be released once it becomes legal to do so, after 100 years, and I gather from a comment above that the Irish data is already freely available.
The issue, is that the UK have likely granted the private company an exclusive right to these records, which then further restricts the right of the end-user to reproduce and distribute these otherwise-public domain records as they like.* From the copyright page at the site:
Right. So if I buy a copy of the census sheet my great granddad filled out, I am infringing upon this private company's copyright if I send it to my mum or print it out and make it part of a posterboard display for a family gathering. Don't believe me? Head over to the Terms and Conditions page:
This is a problem.
*Q: I'm assuming that the Crown Copyright that attaches to these materials expired, assuming a publication date at the time of making the census. Otherwise, Crown Copyright might still be in effect (which is ridiculous, but possible).
If this data was provided for free the website would be overwhelmed with searches, as was the case the last time they tried it.
If making a small charge considerably reduces the running costs, and stops other taxpayers from footing the considerable bill not just for digitizing but hosting the data, that's fine by me (a UK taxpayer) and, I'm sure the vast majority of the rest of us.
Whilst a huge fan of FOI and openness in government, this release of data does NOT fall into that catagory. Please direct your knee-jerk reactions elsewhere. Thank you.
I've heard that the new CEO of the umbrella company, poorly named brightsolid, has very curly hair but is not respected by his staff for the decisions made.
Just a rumour, mind.
#14
"If this data was provided for free the website would be overwhelmed with searches, as was the case the last time they tried it."
If the data was free then people might use it.
If they asked nicely, then there might have been volunteers to do the scanning.
I'm often confused by the notion that because something is taxpayer funded, it must be given away for free to those taxpayers. Taxes paid to build your local subway system. Why aren't rides free? Taxes paid to build your local toll roads, but they want money for those as well. Taxes are paying for your local sports team's arena, why aren't seats free? Taxes paid for your local convention center to be built, how come you have to pay to go to the convention that's held there?
#15
"If the data was free then people might use it."
So far just over 626,000 people have used it , and that's not even including peak viewing times !
As many stated, the records are still free and in the public domain -- you can go and track down the hard copies.
They didn't sell the archives to a private entity.
This fee applies to using a digital service for convenience.
f y cn't ndrstnd tht smpl dffrnc, 'm ncrdbly mzd y'r bl t rd t ll.
I'm a bit surprised at the laid-back reaction to these charges. I am assuming that most of the people replying aren't ardent genealogists.
I have eight families in my direct ancestors that I would like to check up on, plus my children's ancestors on their father's side, another eight families. Also families I have been researching on behalf of friends and family.
I've already made one mistake: I chose to look at the only London-based Amy Pitt apparently in the database, only to find it isn't "my" Amy Pitt but somone else. Thus I wasted £3.47 on seeing a totally useless (from my point of view) record of someone completely unrelated. I could have chosen to view the transcript instead, which would have saved 20 credits, but then if it had been the right one, that just adds 10 credits to the cost of seeing the record. I thought I was onto a sure thing as it was the only one in London. Also, I only had 60 credits, and had used 30 seeing my great grandfather's entry, written in his own hand. Thus I only had enough left to see one other original record or three transcripts but not both.
I think £3.47 per record seems very expensive, especially when they appear to sell the records on to other suppliers too. Eventually they will release information on CDs or DVDs too.
#18 You are wrong: as far as I am aware you cannot see the original census returns anywhere. You can, as someone has stated, go to the National Archives at Kew and get free access. That accrues different costs of its own.
"If you can't understand that simple difference, I'm incredibly amazed you're able to read at all."
Quite. Cory, surely you should know better than to nidulge in rabble-rousing.
"You must not use the record for commercial purposes or publish them without our permission."
So printing them out and sending to your mother is fine. Publishing them in your in-depth analysis of 20th century Britain's living habits isn't. But if you were publishing an in-depth analysis of living habits in the 20th century, you'd probably go to the National Records / Archives. And look at them for real. And for free.
#16
In America, AFAIK, all data collected by the Govt. is public domain. Unless it's sensitive for security or whatever. So many American readers of Boing Boing have that expectation.
Also, your analogies of trains stations and sports stadiums don't work. These facilities have high running costs.
But with data, the main cost is that of collecting and organizing it. This has already been done with taxpayers money, and the Govt. has got their use/benefit from it. So it has already been paid for and already been benefitted from.
Because this is data, and not train seats, it can be copied and people can benefit from it again (and again, and again). The cost to run a free database so that taxpayers can access the data is quite small.
So really, while expecting anything paid for with taxes to be free is stupid, expecting data collected with taxes to be free isn't.
#21 As far as I am aware, you don't get to look at the original records even if you go to Kew to look at the census. What you get is free access to the same record that people have to pay to see, online.
In the case of the 1911 census, if you ask for information which is not in the online version, they will charge you £45 even if the search is unsuccessful.
At Kew, you can view original documents provided you have a Reader's Ticket. It's obtainable with 2 forms of ID, just like a Library card. When I got mine, it was free, although admittedly I haven't been for a year or so.
Best to order them in advance, though. I think you can do it through their site.
Documents prepared by the US Federal government are public domain, but they can still charge you for copies. Under FOIA, they are able to charge for copying, for the cost of searching for documents, or (in some cases) for review costs. (See http://www.fas.org/sgp/foia/citizen.html)
State and local agencies in the US also charge for access to the information, for copying fees, for research fees, or for online access. While some counties have deed records accessible for free online, others (and the entire state of Georgia) charge for online access. If you want to look at the deed records for free, you can go review them in person.
I'll admit that I get annoyed at charges that are obviously high to get rid of researchers -- $50 for access to three aerial photographs, for example -- but overall, many of these offices need the money to provide the services and maintain the records.
How come we have to pay at all? The Norwegian government have uploaded their censuses, tax lists, parish regiaters etc, so that anyone can view, download and print them for free. If they can do it, why can't we? (For anyone with Norwegian ancestors, it's called the Digitalarkivet.) Come on UK - catch up!
I think it is a very good thing that US Federal government documents are public domain. It also seems to make sense to allow some changes for the above mentioned copying, searching, and review (not quite sure what this on entails yet). I think it should be a high priority to digitize documents and make them available online so that these costs can be reduced.
I also think that a company should be able to digitize these public domain documents and put them on their website for a fee. In this case Find My Past Limited has independently created new value on top of the 1911 UK census by providing it online, in a digital and searchable formate.
I think, however, that the UK goverment should not (if this is the case) give Find My Past Limited an exclusive right to the census. They should be able to have an exclusive right to the digital documents (ie the documents they created or added value to) but anyone should be able to digitize the public domain work as they want.
I don't know how laws work especially across the pond but it seems practical to me.
There's also the fact that by digitizing these documents, the company is also helping to preserve them.
Any idea what happens to century-old documents being handled by thousands of people?
What doesn't get ripped out and taken home as a souvenir gets destroyed by handling and skin oils.
Quick, easy, relatively inexpensive access to historic documents.
Higher chances of preservation of historic documents, because only a limited number of people will now be handling the original docs.
Ability to find out who and where we came from -- pretty much priceless.
Grand total? WIN.
As a nice contrast, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has just released all the material on its website under a Creative Commons BY licence.
The ABS has been providing huge amounts of stats, info sheets etc on their website for free for years. But now you can actually use the stuff, too.
Doesn't go back as far as 1911 - but at least its a nice acknowledgment that the public shouldn't be paying for things twice.