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May 2010

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Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter
by Michael S. Hart 21 May '10

21 May '10

The Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter---May 21, 2010 eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since 1971 The 40th Year of PG eBooks Starts on July 4, 2010!!!!!! Just 1 1/2 Months!!! 40th Year Special Project!!! Not Whitewashers. . .maybe blackwasher??? Improved Support For Our Project Gutenberg Volunteers As a tribute to our volunteers we would like to make an extraordinary effort to thank them for all their effort over these four decades with a program to make the work less onerous and more easy to do. If you, or anyone you know, has any suggestions, of how we can make the work go more smoothly, more easily, and improve things for our volunteers in any manner, please answer this Newsletter and let us know. As one particular part of this program I would like for us to create a new kind of "Blue-washers" group for the specific purpose of helping our volunteers with problem areas specific to them. i.e. some volunteers just have one or two specific production areas at which they balk at certain procedures that are insisted upon and that's all the prevents them from being *perfect volunteers.* If any of you are willing to help me help them overcome such problem areas, I would be extremely grateful!!! Sometimes these are a simple as helping someone who has their margins counted in millimeters instead of inches, or who simply can't get their mind quite wrapped around certain details our post production people insist upon; other times it might just be a language gap where these volunteers don't quite have the same command of English as those who are trying to teach them. If you feel you have the ability to make up for some of these or other small difficulties that are all the keep some of our volunteers from really taking off, you will be more than welcome. Thank you so much!!! Michael S. Hart Founder Project Gutenberg, Inventor of eBooks PS The term "Blue-washers" is a combination of terms: "Blue Pencil" is the publisher/editor term for comments to writers about how to improve various article, essay, or even book length submissions. "Whitewasher" is a term I invented long ago to name the people who supported me in my Project Gutenberg efforts after I realized I could not continue being the last of the editors to see each and every book and to put these all online myself after about #4,000. NB Two people, including our CEO tried to help me with this this for about a month at a time, but each said it not something they ever wanted to do again. So, kudos, and plenty of them, to those who are willing to be last in the lineup to take the ultimate responsibility of an eBook's final content, format and appearance!!! However we should add that Greg Newby and I have always championed the fact that some of our volunteers should/ would/could be able to have their eBooks published with no interference from anyone else, rules or not, with an exception for obvious spelling and formatting errors. We have always had a few such volunteers that we took a personal hand in helping through the process, for those various reasons listed above, or many others. We have some who submit perhaps one book per month, and others that take a year or longer between books. Please let me know if you are willing to help. We are currently giving away about 100,000 books a week Just through the one single site: http://gutenberg.org About 3 million eBooks per month or 36 million per year 300th Spanish eBook is coming up!!! Please send in your suggestions for title #300!!! Please note TWO new Project Gutenberg web pages below-- new features, new search engines, etc. Please test and make comments, suggestions, etc. 31 Months to The End of the World Via Mayan Calendaring on December 21, 2012 [some now saying October 11, 2011] Leaving 2 years 7 months, 10 1/3 seasons, or 31 months. [Leaving 1 year 5 months, 5 2/3 seasons, or 17 months.] [All bracketed figures minus 10 days, of course.] Not to worry, I will still make long range predictions, such as that there will be affordable petabytes [2021], and enough eBooks to fill an entire petabyte around the same time. Current long range prediction for drives: 1 petabyte drives in 2025, possibly even in 2022, along with 1 terabyte solid state drives [SSDs]. 1 petabyte= enough storage for every word ever published, 1 billion books of 1 million characters each. May 21, 2010 to December 21, 2012 is 31 Months. May 21, 2010 to October 11, 2011 is 17 Months -10 days. Request: 1894 Dr. Johnson Edition of: The Complete Works of Shakespeare collection. Missing volumes 2 & 6. Got all the other volumes for a couple dollars at a garage sale, but will pay 20 dollars each for for volumes 2 & 6. GENERATION CHANGE I got a book this week called "Generation Change," that lists "150 Ways We Can Change Ourselves, Our Country, and Our World." Most of these 150 items come with some suggestion of sites to visit on the Internet. #1 is: PROJECT GUTNBERG!!!!!!! "Generation Change" is available from: http://www.skyhorsepublishing.com Help create the "http://m.gutenberg.org" web pages!!! We are working on making all our eBooks optimized to do their best on iPads, iPhones, iPods, cellphones and PDA devices, and to do our web pages to the same degree. Let us know if you have any of these and can test them, or would like to optimize for any other devices. There are 4.5 billion such devices in the world, versus only 1.15 billion computers, and more and more readers, in spite of what the pundits say, are surfing, reading, and everything else on such mobile devices. More and more such devices will ONLY surf to "m" sites such as "m.gutenberg.org" In Our Own News Bin New Project Gutenberg Web Pages We have two new Project Gutenberg web sites up for testing. I think you will find some interesting additional searching and expanded lists of other eBook sites worth trying out: http://gutenberg.trulymail.comi and another new effort at: http://domainunltd.weebly.com/ Details: The goal I'm aiming at with this initiative is twofold. I'd like to provide as much useful information as possible about e-books (freely) available on the web, where to find them. And secondly, to offer people the opportunity to help out, producing e-text for PG, in first instance by doing a first round of proofreading on texts I deliver. People who want to do more are welcome to and can count on help in going through the process from start to finish. Experienced proofers who enjoy working on a complete book are also very welcome. Marc D'Hooge marcdH(a)belgium-mail.com APPROACHING NEWS. . . . ONGOING U.S. COPYRIGHT EXTENSIONS U.S. COPYRIGHTS TO BE EXTENDED TO 115 YEARS, DECADE BY DECADE FROM THE ORIGINAL 14 YEARS! THE SUPREME COURT SAYS IT NEVER HAS TO STOP!!! Suggestions are more than welcome how to publicize this upcoming event before it even starts to happen!!! Apparently everyone is keeping silent about the various copyright extensions coming up in Canada and the U.S. In just a few years yet another bill will be introduced in the U.S. Congress to extend copyright that has quite literally been extended from 14 years to 115 years. Here's Why We Need To Start Before The Issue Arises!!! When the last Australian Copyright Act was discussed in Parliament, they passed a resolution stating they would NOT extend copyrights. Really. However, just three years later, under economic warfare from, shall we just say, outside sources, they crumbled to the pressure and gave in. The Canadian Parliament is currently in that position-- and while some tell me they have enough signatures from those against any extensions, I will bet you lunch that they, too, crumble before it is over. I would gladly lose every one of those wagers!!! Further Information As you may already know, any time the copyrights in the characters Winnie the Pooh [1926], or The Mouse [1928], start coming close to expiration The U.S. Congress will be sure to start a very quiet frenzy of copyright bills that are designed to go into effect before anything can happen to those two copyrights. As I understand it, Disney(R) made a huge lobby effort, successful, to create the 1976 U.S. Copyright Act; paid as a result an additional $200 million for the right to another 20 years of Winnie the Pooh, and still made the fabled laughing trip to the bank as a result, since the effective date of 1978. As a result I have to imagine their sales of The Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, Piglet, etc., must have been predicted to be so terribly large as to devour Avatar's gross. Given that next bill passed right in the middle of what must have been the busiest day in Congress for the last few decades, the impeachment of President Clinton, this means we should expect something of equal secrecy quite soon, as the current copyright extension runs out 2018. Usually they would make an effort to pass the new one a session or two early, such as in 2016, but given that a snag or two has hit before, we should probably look out starting in 2015, though it will be hard to see. Why? Even during the election just before the last extension I went to ask televised press conference questions on a new U.S. Copyright Act I had heard about, but candidate responses were uniform. . ."I know nothing." I would have to expect that even if the big anchors ask the same question in 2015 they will get that answer. Or non-answer. >From what I have heard there is an ever larger movement to keep everything copyrighted permanently, and to make all media as pay-per-view as possible, to the points of making all broadcast television pay-per-view on a first viewing premise [except public stations]. We are very likely to see a dissolving out boundaries-- cable products showing up on network television and the opposite direction as well. What else CAN we expect when Comcast cable has been the allowed buyer of NBC? If you think programming won't leak over: Consider what happened when Disney took over ABC. Not only did Disney flood ABC with their own programmed output, but they killed off the best of all cartoons. Anyone remember Reboot? I can put you in touch with many copyright experts, and I fear that all of them underestimate the power working to make copyright permanent, in spite of the fact words "limited time" are the U.s. Constitution's description. However, the U.s. Supreme Court decided that limited is really unlimited in "Eldred v Ashcroft." Welcome To Our Newest PG Mirror. . .In Africa!!! Continent: Africa Nation: Namibia Location: Windhoek Provider: Polytechnic of Namibia Url: http://gutenberg.polytechnic.edu.na Url: http://ftp.polytechnic.edu.na/pub/gutenberg The mirror is updated thrice daily. PROJECT GUTENBERG TAG CLOUD We invite interested persons to visit a tag cloud visualization and search system at www.bookdownloadlibrary.com This is updated weekly, from the Project Gutenberg catalog. iPHONE SOUGHT Project Gutenberg is seeking donation of an iPhone, and perhaps other modern cell phones and eBook readers. We are working on some new versions of content at www.gutenberg.org These need to work, including in Europe , but without having a paid cell phone plan. In other words, they need to be unlocked or unlockable. We are particularly interested in devices that have built-in WiFi, so they can access content at www.gutenberg.org without using the cellular network at all. Project Gutenberg is a charitable 501(c)(3) organization in the US. Our All Time Hottest Requests!!!!!!! FLASH RAM I am looking for the earliest flash RAM possible. The ideal piece around which to center this collection is one of the 8 megabyte USBs. 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. We received two examples of RAM actually labeled "Flash," for the H-P 95 pocket DOS machine from 1991, and a sample of Fairchild bubble memory, as well, from down under. Thank you, Mate! 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. These totals do NOT include 75,000+ at http://www.gutenberg.cc Where there are eBooks representing over 100 languages. The Project Gutenberg Statistical Report [As of about noon Central Daylight Time] Various totals from the ~31,000+ at http://www.gutenberg.org and our other Project Gutenberg Sites Week up to May 21 day | cnt ----------------+----- Fri 2010-05-14 | 8 Sat 2010-05-15 | 20 Sun 2010-05-16 | 7 Mon 2010-05-17 | 7 Tue 2010-05-18 | 12 Wed 2010-05-19 | 25 Thu 2010-05-20 | 19 Weekly total = 88 week up to Apr. 21 day | cnt ----------------+----- Wed 2010-04-14 | 14 Thu 2010-04-15 | 11 Fri 2010-04-16 | 12 Sat 2010-04-17 | 19 Sun 2010-04-18 | 12 Mon 2010-04-19 | 19 Tue 2010-04-20 | 7 Weekly total = 94 week up to Mar. 21 day | cnt ----------------+----- Sun 2010-03-14 | 9 Mon 2010-03-15 | 16 Tue 2010-03-16 | 11 Wed 2010-03-17 | 12 Thu 2010-03-18 | 16 Fri 2010-03-19 | 6 Sat 2010-03-20 | 11 Weekly total = 81 Week up to Feb. 21 day | cnt ----------------+----- Sun 2010-02-14 | 5 Mon 2010-02-15 | 12 Tue 2010-02-16 | 10 Wed 2010-02-17 | 16 Thu 2010-02-18 | 11 Fri 2010-02-19 | 4 Sat 2010-02-20 | 4 Weekly total = 62 Week up to Jan. 21st: day | cnt ----------------+----- Thu 2010-01-14 | 8 Fri 2010-01-15 | 13 Sat 2010-01-16 | 16 Sun 2010-01-17 | 8 Mon 2010-01-18 | 12 Tue 2010-01-19 | 5 Wed 2010-01-20 | 11 Weekly total = 73 Previous Month 12/09 day | cnt ----------------+----- Mon 2009-12-14 | 11 Tue 2009-12-15 | 4 Wed 2009-12-16 | 4 Thu 2009-12-17 | 10 Fri 2009-12-18 | 7 Sat 2009-12-19 | 7 Sun 2009-12-20 | 9 Previous month: 11/09 day | cnt ----------------+----- Sat 2009-11-14 | 6 Sun 2009-11-15 | 4 Mon 2009-11-16 | 6 Tue 2009-11-17 | 9 Wed 2009-11-18 | 3 Thu 2009-11-19 | 6 Fri 2009-11-20 | 5 Weekly total = 39 Thanks to Marcello Perathoner for these figures! /// Here are the current language totals for languages with 200 or more eBooks. May 21st Grand total for today: 32366 1 27176 English en 2 1598 French fr 3 680 German de 4 527 Finnish fi 5 479 Dutch nl 6 433 Portuguese pt 7 405 Chinese zh 8 287 Spanish es 9 242 Italian it Apr 21st Grand total for today: 31975 26832 English en 1590 French fr 674 German de 526 Finnish fi 476 Dutch nl 424 Portuguese pt 405 Chinese zh 284 Spanish es 236 Italian it N.B. Portuguese added as many as any other language, up to the top two, of course, tied for third. What do we need to do to get Spanish up and running? Mar 21st Grand total for today: 31616 26540 English en 1568 French fr 662 German de 524 Finnish fi 472 Dutch nl 410 Portuguese pt 405 Chinese zh 283 Spanish es 235 Italian it Feb. 21st Grand total for today: 31234 26241 English en 1557 French fr 647 German de 521 Finnish fi 470 Dutch nl 405 Chinese zh 395 Portuguese pt 275 Spanish es 234 Italian it Jan. 21st Grand total for today: 30935 25995 English en 1547 French fr 628 German de 518 Finnish fi 459 Dutch nl 405 Chinese zh 391 Portuguese pt 274 Spanish es 230 Italian it Compared to the last month: Grand total 25757 English en 1520 French fr 618 German de 515 Finnish fi 453 Dutch nl 405 Chinese zh 376 Portuguese pt 270 Spanish es 220 Italian it Compared to previous month's: Grand total for today: 30399 25587 English en 1498 French fr 614 German de 515 Finnish fi 451 Dutch nl 404 Chinese zh 371 Portuguese pt 268 Spanish es 218 Italian it Previous increases: +214 +205 +254 +281 +294 +287 All Reported Languges Not counting PrePrints, Canada, Australia, PG Europe Thanks to Greg Newby! /// >From Project Gutenberg Sites Worldwide [Don't forget ~75,000 at http://www.gutenberg.cc in .pdf] May 21st Grand totals for today: 32,366 up from 31,975 up 391 PG General Automated Count 1,851 up from 1,845 -- 5 PG of Australia [Vacation] 712 up from 704 up 8 PG of Europe 2,008 -- 2,008 -- 0 PG PrePrints, Reserved [42?] 536 up from 521 up 17 PG of Canada ====== 37,473 up from 37,053 up 421 Grand Total [found lost one!] Apr 21st !!!!!Grand total for today: 31,975 up from 31,616 up 359 PG General Automated Count 1,851 up from 1,845 -- 5 PG of Australia [???] 704 up from 699 up 5 PG of Europe 2,008 -- 2,008 -- 0 PG PrePrints, Reserved [42?] 521 up from 504 up 17 PG of Canada ====== 37,054 up from 36,672 up 386 Grand Total [off by 1, ooops!] 700th PGEu eBook Posted!!! Serving over 2,000 users in 24 hours. Mar 21st 31,616 up from 31,234 up 382 PG General Automated Count 1,845 up from 1,842 up 3 PG of Australia 699 up from 684 up 15 PG of Europe 2,008 -- 2,008 -- 0 PG PrePrints, Reserved [42?] 504 up from 486 up 18 PG of Canada ====== 36,672 up from 36,254 up 418 Grand Total Feb 21st 31,234 up from 30,935 up 299 PG General Automated Count 1,842 up from 1,834 up 8 PG of Australia 684 up from 680 up 4 PG of Europe 2,008 -- 2,008 up 0 PG PrePrints, Reserved [42?] 486 up from 462 up 24 PG of Canada Posted #400 on October 10 July: 14 (Title 349 to 362) August: 16 (Titles 363 to 378) September: 17 (Titles 379 to 395) October: 13 (Titles 396 to 408) November: 9 [up to November 21] December: 19[up to December 21] ====== 36,254 up from 35,919 up 335 Jan 21st 30,935 up from 30,613 up 322 PG General Automated Count 1,834 up from 1,830 up 4 PG of Australia 680 up from 664 up 16 PG of Europe 2,008 -- 2,008 up 0 PG PrePrints, Reserved [42?] 462 up from 436 up 26 PG of Canada Posted #400 on October 10 ====== 35,919 up from 35,551 up 368 Previous month: 35,551 up 240 [Not including Canada's illustrations] 35,311 up 235 [Including correcting above estimate by 2] 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 2009 day | cnt ----------------+----- Wed 2009-12-30 | 9 Thu 2009-12-31 | 12 Fri 2010-01-01 | 6 Sat 2010-01-02 | 10 Sun 2010-01-03 | 2 Mon 2010-01-04 | 21 Tue 2010-01-05 | 5 Weekly Total 65 Grand total for today: 30761 from automated in house counter 25866 English en 1531 French fr 625 German de 517 Finnish fi 455 Dutch nl 405 Chinese zh 384 Portuguese pt 270 Spanish es 225 Italian it etc. 30,761 Up 3,145 From 27,616 PG General Automated Count 1,830 Up 104 From 1,726 Project Gutenberg of Australia 675 Up 121 From 554 Project Gutenberg of Europe 468 Up 243 From 225 Project Gutenberg of Canada [Estimated] 2,008 DN 423 From 2,431 PrePrints [Subtracted 307 Chinese eBooks] ====== ====== 35,742 Up 3,190 From 32,552 Grand Total [Counting subtractions] 9.825 eBooks Per Day 68.773 eBooks Per Week 297.850 eBooks Per Month /// Here is how we ended 2008 27,616 PG General Automated Count 1,726 Project Gutenberg of Australia 554 Project Gutenberg of Europe 225 Project Gutenberg of Canada [Estimated] [202 up to December, no current report] 2,431 PrePrints [Counting the 307 Chinese eBooks +111] ====== ====== 32,552 Grand Total [Counting those PrePrints] 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 Calculating 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 /// Many thanks to all who have helped us reach our 39th year! Michael S. Hart Founder Project Gutenberg

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