[gmonthly] Re: Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter

On Sun, 21 Mar 2010, Vicki wrote:

This is my second request.  Please remove me from your mailing list.

This is my second response: I can't delete you, only you can delete you, or else hackers could wipe out all of our list. Here are some suggestions. I think you are on the "Monthly" email list. You asked about subcribing or unsubscribing from one of the Project Gutenberg Newsletters. Please save for reference: This is the information from: www.gutenberg.org/howto/subscribe-howto Please check this site once in a while for updates: Mailing Lists Various mailing lists for Project Gutenberg exist. A brief description of each follows, along with a link to visit or subscribe (or unsubscribe). All lists live at http://lists.pglaf.org, and are moderated except for the discussion lists: * Newsletters, with new eBook listings, calls for assistance, general information, and announcements: + gweekly: Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter. Traffic consists mostly of one weekly newsletter. + gmonthly: Project Gutenberg Monthly newsletter. Traffic consists mostly of one monthly newsletter. * Notification as new eBooks are posted: + posted: receive book postings as they happen, along with other PG related internally-focused discussion (high traffic, over 10 postings per day) * Discussion for active volunteers: + gutvol-d: general unmoderated volunteer discussion (moderate traffic) + gutvol-p: programming volunteers, for software development (light traffic) + gutvol-w: website volunteers, for website development (new list) + glibrary: library help, for physically tracking down books and copyright research. Low traffic, with occasional requests. * Other lists: + gutvol-l: moderated volunteer announcements (light traffic) If you would like to subscribe to a mailing list simply select a mailing list name above. All lists require a password and email confirmation to subscribe as part of the Lyris anti-spam measures. Copyright ? 1971-2004 Project Gutenberg -- All Rights Reserved. Most recently updated: 2004-08-07 16:33:32.

Thank you in advance.

---Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass.. It's about learning to dance in the rain.

On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 10:05 AM, Michael S. Hart wrote:

The Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter--Mar. 21, 2010 eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since 1971

The 40th Year of PG eBooks Starts on July 4, 2010!!!!!!

Please note TWO new Project Gutenberg web pages below-- new features, new search engines, etc.  Please test and make comments, suggestions, etc.

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

Leaving 2 years 9 months, 11 seasons, or 33 months. [Leaving 1 year 7 months, 6 1/3 seasons, or 19 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.

Help!  In Spanish!

I need a Spanish speaking PG volunteer, as an interview is not going well because I can't tell what they want.

Portuguese and Chinese Battling for Top Five List

Yesteday Portuguese finally managed to catch Chinese to enter our Top Five List of non-Enlish eBooks, with just over 400 PG eBooks now available in each.  Given bigger Internet access in China these days, I should think out Chinese collection would be taking off, but it appears, stongly appears, that we need some real help there.

In addition, given that relative Spanish and Portuguese population difference, that Spanish would catch up, and then surpass Portuguese, but at this rate it will be on the order of months before Spanish reaches 300 eBooks.

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.

Come See Project Gutenberg's CEO and Founder Together

PGLAF CEO Greg Newby will join PG founder Michael Hart at a symposium on the U. Illinois campus.  Registration is free but limited.  The panel with Michael & Greg is:

Thursday April 15 from 1:30-3pm Alice Campbell Alumni Center 601 S Lincoln Ave, Urbana, IL 61801

In or near Illinois:  Please save the date for the upcoming symposium: "Fifty Years of Public Computing at the University of Illinois."

Participants will discuss the meaning and legacy of ten Illinois projects that shaped public computing, beginning with PLATO in 1960. The innovative founders of these projects, as well as prominent scholars in the field and early users, will discuss Illinois' special place in the history of public computing, reflect on current and future projects such as the Urbana-Champaign Big Broadband (UC2B) proposal, and discuss how to extend this culture of innovation into the future.

These Projects Include

   * PLATO (1960)    * Project Gutenberg (1971)    * Urbana Free Library on the Internet (1984))    * CCNet (1993)    * Mosaic (1993)    * PrairieNet (1994)    * U-C Indymedia Center (1999)    * C-U Wireless Network (2001)    * eToysIllinois (2004) and other recent K-12 teaching projects)

The Graduate School of Library and Information Science and the Department of Computer Science are working in open collaboration to coordinate this event. Participation and support are welcome!

 http://50years.lis.illinois.edu/

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

HEADLINE NEWS

APPLE SEEMS READY TO RELEASE iPAD EREADER/TABLET

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@belgium-mail.com

We posted our 400th Portuguese eBook.

And our 500th eBook from PG of Canada.

Details were posted in an Extra Newsletter 10 days ago.

PG of Europe should be posting their 700th eBook today!

OLDER 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!!!

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.

Can anything be done to stop the next U.S. extension?

or

If not stop them, at least publicize them a little?

Suggestions are more than welcome.

I should add that this is probably a losing battle even if it looks as if we are winning.

Here's why:

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 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                   ==                   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                   ==                   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                   ==                   73

Previous Month

     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:

     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

Thanks to Marcello Perathoner!

///

Here are the current language totals for languages with 200 or more eBooks.

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 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]

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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