As most will know, the National Library of Wales is the custodian of wills proved and administrations granted by the church courts in Wales pre-1858. The library has been engaged in a long term project to digitise the entire collection, and the work is virtually complete. For the last few months the documents have been available online to readers within the library, and full availability on the web has been thought imminent for some weeks.
Well . . . I have just managed to get two randomly selected wills up on-screen remotely. They may still be doing occasional pre-release testing, or planning a soft launch. But D-Day seems pretty imminent -- and, just maybe, "we have lift-off!" and full worldwide accessibility has gone live. Fingers crossed, anyway . . .
I was told that looking at the images was intended to be free (it was), but the software would block screen-shots (didn't try); and so copies would, initially at least, have to be ordered from the library in the usual way.
With the current money squeeze, I do wonder whether some variant on the pay-per-view theme will be far behind.
Rol