It looks like our CD-ROM of this product has disappeared. It is so old now that I don't know if the software would still work. Can anyone tell me if it is available online or anywhere?
<http://www.crr.ca/en/component/flexicontent/items/item/19716-for-seven-generations-an-information-legacy-of-the-royal-commission-on-aboriginal-peoples-cd-rom>
Answer
We’ve looked at extracting content from the “For Seven Generations” CD before, but had little success. Much of the content is buried in proprietary software called “Folio Views”. Not at all conducive to exporting reports, documents, etc.
We did manage to find a copy of the 5 volumes of the final report. We found it initially at http://caid.ca/RepRoyCommAborigPple.html and then combined the chapters into the original 5 volumes. The results of this are found in QSpace, or digital repository at the link shown below. So, while all of the things listed below appear on the “For Seven Generations” CD, as far as I know only the first item is available on the web.
- Final Report <http://qspace.library.queensu.ca/handle/1974/6874>
- People to People, Nation to Nation
- Hundreds of Research Reports
-Guide for Developing Native Awareness Curricula for High School and Adult Levels
- Thousands of Pages of Testimony from over 2000 People
I managed to google up one article on converting Folio Views to HTML here:<http://www.law.cornell.edu/papers/lii/fffhtml.htm>
Though it looks like you need a copy of Folio Views in any case. For a one-shot deal, it might not be too onerous to setup a virtual machine running whatever version of Windows you might need to install whatever version of FV you can get your hands on. Then, you could try this method, or some adaptation thereof.
Another option if you can get a working FV installation would be to see if you can print from the application, and if so, install a PDF printer driver and export it all that way. This will likely be time-consuming and result in a huge loss of fidelity and embedded metadata, but might produce acceptable access copies at least.
The Aboriginal Peoples Commission disk is just one example. There are a great many Stats Canada and other Canadian government publications from the 1990’s in Folio Views and other extinct or soon to be extinct file formats which are in need of saving.
Eventually we will need a list of the products which need saving, and the permissions to convert them, then we can figure out a methodology. I would be interested to hear if there are folks in Stats Can, elsewhere in government, or at other Universities, who are thinking or have thought about this problem.
I would assume that the author of the For Seven Generations would hold the copyright to the product? Third party materials could be subject to copyrights held by other organizations. Where information has been produced or copyright is not held by Government of Canada, the materials are protected under the Copyright Act, and international agreements.
I managed to google up one article on converting Folio Views to HTML here:<http://www.law.cornell.edu/papers/lii/fffhtml.htm>
Though it looks like you need a copy of Folio Views in any case. For a one-shot deal, it might not be too onerous to setup a virtual machine running whatever version of Windows you might need to install whatever version of FV you can get your hands on. Then, you could try this method, or some adaptation thereof.
Another option if you can get a working FV installation would be to see if you can print from the application, and if so, install a PDF printer driver and export it all that way. This will likely be time-consuming and result in a huge loss of fidelity and embedded metadata, but might produce acceptable access copies at least.
The Aboriginal Peoples Commission disk is just one example. There are a great many Stats Canada and other Canadian government publications from the 1990’s in Folio Views and other extinct or soon to be extinct file formats which are in need of saving.
Eventually we will need a list of the products which need saving, and the permissions to convert them, then we can figure out a methodology. I would be interested to hear if there are folks in Stats Can, elsewhere in government, or at other Universities, who are thinking or have thought about this problem.
I would assume that the author of the For Seven Generations would hold the copyright to the product? Third party materials could be subject to copyrights held by other organizations. Where information has been produced or copyright is not held by Government of Canada, the materials are protected under the Copyright Act, and international agreements.
