Bodleian Ballads on line no longer available.

Subject: Ballads on line no longer available.
From: Nick Dow
Date: 05 Dec 24 - 02:20 PM

The Bodleian Libraries have taken The Broadside Ballads Online resource offline, owing to a change in guidance within the University relating to cyber security.
This is most annoying. However there is a download option. I'm not sure what this looks like, and I'm getting round it slowly. Any advice is welcome.

Subject: RE: Ballads on line no longer available.
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Dec 24 - 02:45 PM

https://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/

The page lists alternative ways to access the Broadside Ballads.

Users seeking broadside ballads in Bodleian collections can access information in the following places:

A listing of each of the Bodleian collections of broadside ballads is available below. The broadside ballad items in these collections are listed in order by shelfmark, with title and first line.


Bodleian Ashmole collection
Bodleian Curzon collection
Bodleian Douce collection
Bodleian Firth collection
Bodleian Gough collection
Bodleian Harding collection
Bodleian John Johnson collection
Bodleian Rare Books collection
Bodleian Rawlinson collection
Bodleian Wood collection

Scroll down on each of these links to get to the data. They all have the same header with these links and message.

Subject: RE: Ballads on line no longer available.
From: Joe Offer
Date: 05 Dec 24 - 03:15 PM

The Bodleian Ballads Collection suffers from the same problem Mudcat has: old software. They'll have to find a new software package and then go though the process of setting it up. And then there's the problem of paying for it. Sounds like it may take a good while. In the meantime, like at Mudcat, we do our best with workarounds.

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballads on line no longer available.
From: Jack Campin
Date: 05 Dec 24 - 03:48 PM

They are probably worried about getting attacked the same way the British Library was. That was bad.

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballads on line no longer available.
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Dec 24 - 04:08 PM

I hadn't heard about that. Months After Cyberattack, British Library Crawls Back Online
Britain’s national library made the first major steps in its recovery process after a ransomware group took down its website and online catalog.

There is a paywall at the NY Times, but here is part of it:

A criminal group attacked Britain’s national library in late October, disrupting online systems, including email, and stealing data, which the group later tried to auction online, the library said. Mr. Keating apologized for not being able to protect some personal data belonging to users and staff members that was leaked in the attacks.

Cyberattacks targeting arts and cultural institutions are becoming more common. Late last year, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Rubin Museum of Art in New York and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas were among the institutions that experienced outages after a cyberattack. The attack targeted a service provider, Gallery Systems, used by hundreds of cultural organizations to display their work online.

The Metropolitan Opera in 2022 was hobbled by a cyberattack that took its website offline and paralyzed its box office. Last year, a cyberattack was carried out on the Philadelphia Orchestra and its home venue, the Kimmel Center.

Good idea to take themselves out of harm's way.

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballads on line no longer available.
From: Nick Dow
Date: 05 Dec 24 - 05:21 PM

Unfortunately the downloads are a series of RDF files if you can get them yo open it will be raw data. Not a lot of use. There might be an option with Java if I can figure it out. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, or in my case a useless one.

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballads on line no longer available.
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 05 Dec 24 - 07:25 PM

Jack Campin wrote: They are probably worried about getting attacked the same way the British Library was. That was bad.

Not just was; it still is bad! They're slowly rebuilding, but it's going to take years.

The Bodleian's situation is much better, because at least they have the files. The BL doesn't. The Bodleian could post the files, but the problem is a finding system. So I suspect the Bodleian broadsides will be back up sooner than the BL gets all their scans back on line.

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballads on line no longer available.
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 06 Dec 24 - 02:23 AM

The Bodleian are cached, but the search engine does not seem to work. I found a link once but it seems to have disappeared.

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballads on line no longer available.
From: Nick Dow
Date: 06 Dec 24 - 07:56 PM

Got it! I think this works as a cached version of the site. The Browse button seems to work.

https://web.archive.org/web/20211101031304/http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/browse

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballads on line no longer available.
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Dec 24 - 08:05 PM

That would have been my next move, to see if the Wayback Machine had copies. Good find.

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballads on line no longer available.
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 06 Dec 24 - 08:20 PM

Ballads not bodeleian

Subject: RE: Bodleian Ballads on line no longer available.
From: Nick Dow
Date: 07 Dec 24 - 04:30 AM

Excellent, thanks for that PMB. I have had trouble spelling Bodleian more times than enough! I typed it twice on this post. You are excused.