From gbnewby at pglaf.org  Fri Jul  4 01:48:43 2008
From: gbnewby at pglaf.org (Greg Newby)
Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2008 01:48:43 -0700
Subject: [gmonthly] World eBook Fair July 4-August 4
Message-ID: <20080704084843.GA3439@mail.pglaf.org>

A Million Plus Books Free for the Taking!

July 4 2008

The Third Annual World eBook Fair Starts July 4th.
"Own Your Own Library" is the theme of this year's
World eBook Fair.

Starting July 4th you will be able to do just that in an
unprecedented opportunity to download books in the
widest variety ever available.

Visit www.worldebookfair.org to get started.

Project Gutenberg and partner sponsors encourage readers to create the
"personal library" of their choice in a "personal computer."  Most of
the fair's electronic books are free of charge, and an additional
160,000 or more have coupon or discount purchases available during the
month.

All possible types of electronic books, or eBooks, are available:

  eBooks in over 100 Different Languages!
  eBooks designed for cell phones!
  eBooks designed for Adobe readers!
  eBooks designed for plain text readers!
  eBooks out loud in theatrical performances!
  eBooks that your computer can read aloud to you!
  eBooks that can be easily quoted in school papers!
  160,000 eBooks in brand new commercial editions!!!
  Music, movies, etc. are also included. . . .


Highlights of the World eBook Fair

Just two years ago The First World eBook Fair came
on the scene with about 1/3 million books, doubled
to 2/3 million in 2007, and now over one million.

Created by contributions from 100+ eLibraries from
around the world, here are the largest collections

As of press date of midnight Central Daylight Time
July 1, 2008 these were the approximate numbers:



  ~100,000+ from Project Gutenberg
  ~500,000+ from The World Public Library
  ~450,000  from The Internet Archive
  ~160,000  from eBooks About Everything
----------
~1,210,000+ Grand Total as of July 1, 2008


The Internet Archive will add about 1,000 books on
each business day, along with various additions by
the other contributors during World eBook Fair.
Thus the final grand total may be over 1,230,000


Contact information:

If you have any questions, or seek further materials, an interview
or would like to confirm the schedule or contents please feel free
to contact any of the following:

Michael S. Hart
Founder, Project Gutenberg
405 W. Elm, Urbana, IL 61801
hart at pglaf.org
hart at pobox.com
US Phone  217-344-6623
Cellphone 808-295-0615

Gregory B. Newby
CEO, Project Gutenberg
gbnewby at pglaf.org
US Phone 907-450-8663
http://www.gutenberg.org

John Guagliardo
Founder, World Public Library
Honolulu, Hawaii
john at gutenberg.cc
US Phone 808-292-2068
http://www.worldpubliclibrary.org

Catherine Hodge
eBooks About Everything
info at ebooksabouteverything.com
US Phone 760-327-5100
http://ebooksabouteverything.com

The Internet Archive
http://www.archive.org/details/texts


From hart at pglaf.org  Sun Dec 21 11:03:43 2008
From: hart at pglaf.org (Michael Hart)
Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2008 11:03:43 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [gmonthly] The Project Gutenberg Newsletter
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0812211059120.22670@pglaf.org>


I am sending this to BOTH the monthly and weekly Newsletter lists,
and apologize for any previous confusion between those lists:

Project Gutenberg Monthly Newlsetter <gmonthly at lists.pglaf.org>
Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter <gweekly at lists.pglaf.org>

If you appear on BOTH lists you may get two copies.

If you get NO copy next month, be sure you are on MONTHLY.

Let me know if you need info on subbing and unsubbing.


Happy New Year Everyone!!!


Michael


///


Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter

The Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter, Dec. 21, 2008
eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since 1971


I'm expecting a rather busy day the 21st, so I am doing
as much of the Newsletter half a day early as possible,
so be forewarned, some of the numbers may be a day late
or early, depending on how you look at things.


Happy Holidays!!!

Give The World eBooks in 2009!!!


48 Months to The End of the World Via Mayan Calendaring
on December 21, 2012 [some now saying October 11, 2011]

This leaves 4 years. 16 seasons, or 48 months.

Not to worry, I will still make long range predictions.



New Project Gutenberg Landmarks and Headlines




The new goal is to put Spanish into our Top 5 list.

I desperately need some Spanish speaking people to help me!



We also officially passed 32,000 original Project Gutenberg
eBooks this past month, including all our usual listings.

This means the original Project Gutenberg editions now list
as many titles as the average U.S. public library.


Please note that PrePrints now has nearly 2,500 eBooks!!!

Well worth looking into:

http:www.preprints.readingroo.ms

We could use someone to write a piece about PrePrints.

We also need more help with the Chinese eBooks there.



The News In More Detail



The times are changing, and we can either lead or follow.


If we don't lead in the field of Chinese eBooks we follow--
and we are starting a Project Gutenberg of Chinese, for all
who may wish to get in on the ground floor.

Believe it or not, Spanish is listed as the third language,
with regard to its use on the entire Internet so that's the
next goal, to bring Spanish to out Top 5.

In reference to that goal, I am giving a presentation for a
new combination of Internet efforts called Both Americas,
in Buenos Aires early next Spring, followed by what I would
hope will be a similar conference in France.  India has had
one or more problems with getting an actual invitation sent
to me, and since their current conference will be over less
than a month from now, I will not be able to attend even if
such an invitation is issue at the last moment unless it is
of such an unusual nature that I can't turn it down and may
have to interrupt another trip I have now scheduled during,
and including the same period, the coming month.

This is the second time a conference hosted by people I had
contact with in India has not worked out due to inabilities
to get things organized in a manner that does not cost me a
great deal of time and money, neither of which I have great
amounts of to invest in any but the wisest of manners.

I BRING THIS UP AGAIN BECAUSE I HAVEN'T HEARD MUCH LATELY!

HENCE MY NEED FOR ASSISTANCE WITH SPANISH!!!


I fear the conference in France may be headed the direction
it was headed in last year, much as did the other one I had
mentioned above, but right now I can't say for sure that it
is either going to actually happen, or that I may speak.

Something I should mention about possible conferences

If all the plans are not made, tickets purchased, arranged,
etc., so that I can at least expect to break even on trips,
at least one month in advance, the odds of my attending the
conference fall very rapidly to zero.  So far the only ones
keeping up their end of the bargain are the Both Americas
hosting the conference in Buenos Aires, so that appears the
only conference I am certain to attend in six months.

AND NOW THERE ARE DOUBTS ABOUT THAT!!!


Greg Newby and I have made an attempt to set up one of few,
very few, conference appearances with a joint presentation,
but we haven't heard a word back from that one either, so I
won't even mention it at the moment.

Project Gutenberg just doesn't have the money for us to get
to conferences where we would lose money in the process.




Our All Time Hottest Requests!!!!!!!



FLASH RAM


I am looking for the earliest flash RAM possible.

The very earliest were PCMCIA cards, such as used for the
Poqet computer, etc.

The earliest USB flash drives were DisgoDizgo, M-Systems
and these were OEMed by IBM, HP, etc. They are particular
in a recognizable fashion because their snapon connectors
resemble the connectors of jigsaw puzzles.




POWERPOINT


We need someone who can do PowerPoint illustrations.

One in particular, building a 3-D box of 1,000 dominoes.





Additional Newsletter Services


In addition, we will provide the PG Canada Newsletter and
totals from PG of Australia, Europe, PrePrints, etc.

You should notice that we had a very good month, with 100
books done nearly every single week.


These totals do NOT include 75,000+ at

httpwww.gutenberg.cc

Where there are eBooks representing over 100 languages.



These are the various totals from the ~30,000 at

httpwww.gutenberg.org

and our other Project Gutenberg Sites


This week:

       day       | cnt
----------------+-----
  Sun 2008-12-14 |   6
  Mon 2008-12-15 |   5
  Tue 2008-12-16 |   9
  Wed 2008-12-17 |   6
  Thu 2008-12-18 |   8
  Fri 2008-12-19 |   7
  Sat 2008-12-20 |  10


Thanks to Marcello Perathoner!



Here are the current language totals
for languages with over 100 eBooks.



Grand total for today: 27,475 [- 27,188 ] +287

23,277 [ - 23,075 =] +202  English en
  1,333 [ -  1,319 =] + 14  French  fr
    556 [ -    553 =] +  3  German  de
    480 [ -    476 =] +  4  Finnish fi
    392 [ -    377 =] + 25  Chinese zh
    370 [ -    361 =] +  9  Dutch   nl
    287 [ -    267 =] + 20  Portuguese pt
    218 [ -    217 =] +  1  Spanish es
    169 [ -    164 =] +  5  Italian it

Not to mention PrePrints, Canada, Australia, Europe....

Total increase       +287      All Reported Languges


and from last month. . . .


Grand total for today 27,188 [ - 26,867 =] +321

23,075 [ - 22,863 =] + 212   English en
  1,319 [ -  1,289 =] +  76   French  fr
    553 [ -    549 =] +   4   German  de
    476 [ -    470 =] +   6   Finnish fi
    361 [ -    359 =] +   2   Dutch   nl
    377 [ -    359 =] +  18   Chinese zh
    267 [ -    260 =] +   7   Portuguese pt
    217 [ -    207 =] +  10   Spanish es
    164 [ -    159 =] +   5   Italian it

etc.,etc.,etc.

Total increase       + 321     All Reported Lanugages


Thanks to Greg Newby!

//////


And From Project Gutenberg Sites Worldwide


27,475  +   287  112008  PG General Automated Count
  1,723  +     6  111808  PG Australia
    553  +    13  102108  PG Europe
  2,494  +    33  102108  PG PrePrints
    202  +    12  110908  PG Canada  [Estimated]
======
32,447  +   349  by various automated counts and

newsletters


Note  Without counting PrePrints, we are still about 30K,
and some of the new .lit collection will not make it under
our current rules of addition from PrePrints, and would be
deleted from PrePrints without moving to other listings.

The 307 Chinese eBooks in PrePrints will probably go, as a
team of our best Chinese workers says they are not worth a
lot more time to work on, etc.

Note  There are perhaps 100 eBooks not listed here
that are already in circulation from Project Gutenberg.

Note  PG Canada includes English, French, and Italian.





Here is how we ended 2007

The combined PG projects had produced a total of 26,161

titles.


The most number of books posted...
  ...in one day was 65 on the 26th December
  ...in one week was 151 in Week 18 (week ending 9th May)
  ...in one month was 477 in November

We averaged
338 per month [Over 4,000 for the year]
  78 per week
  11.13 per day

99 titles were newly REposted to the new filing system,

bringing us almost to the 2,000 mark.


Here is a small selection of project milestones;

TOTAL Original Project Gutenberg eBooks equals about
the number of books in the average U.S. public library
   32,500 on 20082121 [Counting the 307 Chinese Preprints]
                      [And presuming 3 after official count]
   32,000 on Calcuating
   31,500 on 20081021 [not an error, 1,777 PrePrints]
   30,000 on 20081021
   29,500 on 20080919
   29,000 ~~ Calculating
   28,500 ~~ Calculating
   28,000 ~~ 20080516
   27,500 on 20080405
   27,000 ~~ 20080229
   26,500 on 20080126
   26,000 on 20071224
   25,000 on 20071012
   24,000 on 20070710
   23,000 on 20070415

PG-AU
   1,700 on 20081010
   1,600 on 20080208
   1,500 on 20070407

PG Canada
   175 on 20080930
   100 on 20080325
   110 on 20080417





From hart at pglaf.org  Sun Dec 21 11:09:25 2008
From: hart at pglaf.org (Michael Hart)
Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2008 11:09:25 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [gmonthly] !@! Gutenberg Mobile/Cellphone eBooks
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0812211105000.22670@pglaf.org>



This Service Just Announced As Follows!!!

Our CEO, Greg Newby, is trying this out, it's working fine!

[The following is the press release pretty much as it arrived]


Look For PG Mobile - Project Gutenberg's Mobile Edition


Why using Amazon's proprietary Kindle when you can use your mobile 
phone instead? Today's cell phones offer excellent screens and 
massive computing power to ensure best reading comfort. Mobile books 
do not weigh much and you can carry them with you wherever you are. 
Each Java / MIDP 2.0 enabled cell phone is sufficient - the most 
common computing platform in the world: There are by far more cell 
phones shipped worldwide than personal computers.

PG Mobile is a software that transfers the plain text format 
provided by Project Gutenberg onto small handset screens - together 
with all the features known from physical books like turning pages, 
page numbers and bookmarks. Just download the PG Mobile version of 
any eBook and read it on your phone: All Project Gutenberg mobile 
eBooks will soon be available for download as an additional file 
format in the download section of each Gutenberg title on 
Gutenberg.org. Stay tuned!

PG Mobile is based on the common Java file format (JAR) readable on 
nearly all mobile handsets. The superior features of the PG Mobile 
reader offer benefits like landscape mode and bookmarks, among many 
others. There's no book size limit, the book size is only limtated 
by the individual capabilities of your handset.

All mobile books can be downloaded as Java-applications and can then 
later be installed on the cell phone by using Bluetooth, serial 
connection, infrared or data cable. Additionally it will be possible 
to install the books directly over the air by using WAP: Just browse 
to Gutenberg.org and click on the JAR-link. And soon the mobile book 
will automatically be installed on your phone.

Please visit the homepage of the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive 
Foundation: http://www.gutenberg.org.

PG Mobile developed by QiOO Interactive, PG Mobile - JAR-book 
Technology by QiOO Interactive, http://www.qioo.com.

QiOO Interactive is the first producer of free mobile books 
worldwide. As a result of a university spin-off project at the 
Institute of Electronic Business e.V., http://www.ieb.net, the first 
mobile books were created in summer 2003.

From hart at pglaf.org  Mon Dec 22 10:40:21 2008
From: hart at pglaf.org (Michael Hart)
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2008 10:40:21 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [gmonthly] !@! errors in Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark twain
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0812221037210.14425@pglaf.org>


We need someone to process in 150 errors that were very nicely sent 
to us a while back, but never gotten to.

Please assist if you can.

Thank you very much!!!

Happy Holidays!!!


Michael S. Hart
Founder
Project Gutenberg


From hart at pglaf.org  Wed Dec 24 22:42:36 2008
From: hart at pglaf.org (Michael Hart)
Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2008 22:42:36 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [gmonthly] Error Correction of Project Gutenberg eBooks
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0812242241060.25814@pglaf.org>



Your assistance is hereby requested:


As many of you know, I like to do something around this time

every year to take a new step forward in Project Gutenberg.

As luck would have it, I recently received an email reminder
from one of our volunteers who reads our eBooks out loud for
those who need or want audio eBook versions of our library.

This volunteer was kind enough to keep a log of errors found
while recording one of our classics eBooks out loud and then
sent us that list of errors, and now was following up.

Due to the fact that we receive more errors messages than we
have volunteers to  handle, these errors were not corrected,
which stimulated me to write a request for help on this in a
recent Project Gutenberg Newsletter.

The results were immediate, effective, and continuing.

The new edition, complete with ~23 corrections is online and
has been for a couple days already, and we are still getting
more volunteers for error correction.

This is a great and wonderful thing because the one thing in
the history of eBooks that separates Project Gutenberg is an
everlasting continuing process of improvement.

Hundreds of our eBooks are reissued each year with a variety
of improvements, some technical, some in format and/or style
of presentation, many with various error corrections.



How Good Can An eBook Get?


If we keep this process going for as many years more as this
has been going on already, there is no reason average eBooks
should not be as accurate, or even more accurate, than books
being published on paper.

Some people like to pretend Project Gutenberg eBooks that we
run through certain processes are "perfect," but I think our
own sensibilities tell us this is not the case.

The recent new edition mentioned above is a perfect example,
as it had been through just about all the processes we have,
and yet reading it out loud revealed ~23 more errors.

I would certainly hesitate to bet that our average 250 pages
long book would not have ~23 errors still in it.

After all, 25 errors in 250 pages at only 1,000 characters a
page, would mean the book had 1 error per 10,000 characters,
or that it was 99.99% perfect.

I won't bore you all with numerical details, other than just
a quick mention that the earliest eBook standards were 99.9%
and then The Library of Congress upped that to 99.95%, and a
few years later Project Gutenberg raised it to 99.975% and I
would certainly bet our average eBook that has completed all
our standard processes is at least that good.

However, there is always room for improvement, and that's an
awfully touchy subject for some, but not for CEO Greg Newby,
or for myself, or for a few others who are willing to create
a new Project Gutenberg Error Correction Team.

Believe it or not, we have receives perhaps 10,000 messages,
over 37 years, encouraging us to check certain parts of book
files for errors.

10,000 error messages!!!

We should expect to receive many more in the coming years as
we will have many more readers.



What Makes A Project Gutenberg eBook?


As I said earlier, the greatest difference between Gutenberg
eBooks and all others is in the proofreading.

No one spends as much time and effort on accuracy as we do.

In the end, after virtually all the easy to find eBooks have
been created, there will only be error correction to do, and
translations into other languages, the rest grinding slowly,
but assuredly to a halt, unless copyright trends reverse.

There is a reason that Project Gutenberg is used so greatly,
particularly when compared to the millions of other eBooks--
and that is because we work harder to make them better.

It takes an hour to work over the average book to correct an
already existing list of errors. . .you have to get the book
and then you have to open up in a program that won't leave a
trace behind, the various "artifacts" you often see when the
eBooks have been pumped through ill-mannered programs, and a
final pass to make sure all the margins still fit, etc.

Even then, one of our "Whitewashers" has to go over the book
with a final fine tooth comb that pops out every character--
every single character, even a comma, that changed from what
was in the previous edition, and make sure each one of those
changes was intentional.

It's really not terribly easy to be the last persons to work
on an eBook, and to know that any errors you leave behind or
accidentally create will be there for millions of readers in
the world until, hopefully, the next error checker finds and
corrects them.

It is a great responsibility, but it also carries a greatest
sense of achievement, as you realize all the future readers,
which could be billions, will benefit from your work.


So, I thank each and every one of our Error Checking Team in
great sincerity for their efforts, and at the same time I am
asking for new members for this team to step forward to make
yet one more level of contribution towards creating the best
library humanity has ever seen.


Please be encouraged to forward this message to everyone and
anyone you know who might be interested.


Again my HUGE thanks to you all!!!!!!!


Michael S. Hart
Founder
Project Gutenberg