Investigations of a Dog

Mercurius Politicus linked to Gilbert Mabbott, a new blog about print culture in the English Civil Wars and Interregnum. From this blog I discovered that Calendar of State Papers Domestic is starting to appear on Google Books. There’s a James I volume available with full access. I’m hoping that the rest of the series, particularly the Charles I volumes, will follow soon. There’s no reason why they shouldn’t as they’re all in the public domain. Since the original documents were under Crown Copyright and the calendars were published by HMSO in the 19th century the copyright must have expired by now. Despite that, British History Online are trying to charge money for access to digital versions of the calendars for the reigns of James I and Charles I. I always thought that was a bad decision. If all of the volumes end up being freely available on Google it’s going to look even more stupid.