November 2004 - gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

RE: [gutvol-d] Scholarly use of PG
by D. Starner 13 Nov '04

13 Nov '04

"Her Serene Highness" writes: > However- and this is a big however- PG is not > 'publishing' books. It's copying them. There is no PG publishing house that > is making decisions on whether something is worth publishing or not. Yes, there is. The people of PG as a whole decide whether something is worth publishing or not. There are many books that the people of PG have decided they aren't worth publishing for right now, because they are too hard to scan, too hard to process, too expensive or too hard to get a copy of, etc. > Textual clues do not live only in words. A book comes alive in typeface, > and in word placement on a page. I've seen a grand total of two modern books that used the long-s and weren't facsimile copies, and one of those only used the long-s to replicate the original title pages, not the original text. Several of the facsimile editions have been upfront about the fact that they do what they do for cost reasons, not because it's better. > Saving > a book while divorcing it from its index, illustrations, typefont, and so on > is not 'saving' it. It's a decontextualization. If you want an original copy, go find it. But every new publication decontextualizes the books. Somehow Beowulf readers are willing to deal with editions that look nothing like the original, that lack its illustrations, its typeface. I've handled books printed in Germany in the mid-18th century, and it's an experience in some ways. But that doesn't mean that I insist that reprints be printed in old-style German fonts on rag paper. > A book may be perfectly good reading material- but an ebook printed > in Courier (which is very hard to read), Then don't print it in Courier. That choice is left to you. > perhaps missing its original > illustrations, without an index that shows the manner in which the author's > or editor's mind worked- is no longer the original book. No, it's not. We don't have matter copiers to replicate the original book. > I recall the cry that vinyl was going the way of the dinosaur- yet it has > not. In fact, the MP3 player is the new vinyl- Vinyl has gone the way of the dinosaur; I think it's down to less than 0.5% of the new material sold is on vinyl, and that in a few limited genres. The MP3 may be the "new vinyl", but it's not vinyl. > However, Napster technology is not better in the long run > than a record- CDs and computer memory degrade at an alarming rate. Records are degraded the instant they're pressed, are impossible to copy, and degrade while playing. Napster made backups on a million computers in a few days. You can manually make backups easily, and take them in the car or while jogging. You seem like you're looking for reasons to attack new technology. It has its faults, but I think the complete superseding of records by CDs is good evidence that CDs are overall better than records. > Books > aren't dead either, and people who think books are about finding passages in > less than 25 seconds are missing the point of why people read That was a challenge you made. > People read because they want a total experience - computers don't feel like > paper. They don't smell. The text is usually flat and more difficult to > read. Some of this will change over time- but not all of it, thank the Lord. That's absurd. People read for a million reasons; there is no one point of why people read. Some readings are for entertainment, some readings are because there's nothing else to do on a long trip, some are of whole books for detailed information, some are of one page for a little piece of information. Yes, some people prefer to read on paper for those things that will never be replicated on computer, but we aren't going into libraries and taking books off the shelves. > (copying things and > leaving out some of the vitals doesn't constitute puplishing in most > people's minds, or at least not in a good way, no matter that info techies > might want to think) My library has dozens of little brown books in a series called "Handy Literal Translations", where they took older translations, dumped most of the plays or speeches, and published them in a handy portable form. Or how about the Augustan Reprint Society which frequently reprinted only the introduction, or select essays from various volumes? > libraries don't cut the covers and > publishing info off their books to make more room on the shelves, Right, they put them on microfilm and throw the newspapers away. My mother has a signed Mark Twain that the library was getting rid of, and someone on DP bought boxes of books at the Sydney University bookfest at $5 a piece. Don't tell me that libraries don't get rid of books. As for the covers, in many academic libraries, a number of books have had their covers removed and replaced with a library binding. I rarely see dust jackets on library books, especially not in university libraries. Decontextualization galore. > they > include books of criticism, How many books of criticism do you usually find in a library of 10,000 to 15,000 books? It's not like we don't include books of criticism, it's just that we don't have many yet. > Whether they understand how people use books or why- well, I > seriously doubt that some people here have thought about that. Right, all these people who love books so much that they would spend their volunteer time working on scanning them and proofing them don't know how people use books or why. They just love books from a distance; they don't actually use them. Furthermore, I don't think you understand how people use ebooks or why. You spend a lot of time in criticism, but a lot of it just wrong. You told us we couldn't find a quote in a large body of text, you tell us that typeface is important when no printed book cares, you complain that an ebook in Courier is hard to read, which is a bit like saying that it's hard to read this book because it's upside down. > its incomaptibilty with WP and vice versa makes > life tough on those who do. Have you ever tried learning Word? Your gripes sound like someone who learned WordPerfect and never bothered to learn Word. To which, may I ask again, that you conform to the standard email quoting standard and trim irrelevant text that you aren't replying to? There are rules which have developed over time for the ease of communication via email, which may at some points be arbitary, but everyone adhering to the standard facilites communicating. Your ignoring of these rules make me feel that it's less of a communication and more your demanding that the computer world bend entirely to conform to your little world. -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm

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Re: [gutvol-d] Perfection
by Gutenberg9443＠aol.com 13 Nov '04

13 Nov '04

In a message dated 11/13/2004 2:21:47 PM Mountain Standard Time, nwolcott2(a)kreative.net writes: I'm working on the 1616 translation of Suetonius by Philemon Holland, still regarded by some as the best translation. Alexander Thomson did the translation already posted. Obviously this is one of the cases in which the name of the translator is essential. It does bug me when an etext doesn't give me the original pub date, although I am able to look most of them up. Anne

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Re: !@!@!RE: [gutvol-d] Perfection
by Gutenberg9443＠aol.com 13 Nov '04

13 Nov '04

In a message dated 11/13/2004 1:43:34 PM Mountain Standard Time, jmdyck(a)ibiblio.org writes: I wanted to created a "critical edition" that combined corrections > and items from various editions, I'm curious: How many such amalgams has PG produced? What was the latest? I don't know how many others, but my version of SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON is such an amalgam. Anne

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RE: [gutvol-d] Perfection
by D. Starner 13 Nov '04

13 Nov '04

Let me note, I had no way of telling Greg's comments apart from yours except for context. Perhaps you relied on some HTML thing; please don't do so. I'm not going to argue the wisdom of HTML email, but HTML email that does not degrade nicely to plain text is going to look awful to many of the recievers. "Her Serene Highness" writes: > But a > citation of an out of print book in anthropology, English literature, the > hard scieces, et al, which might very well not be correct in its > information- that will be problematic. But this has nothing to do with etexts; this has to do with older books. > > I would be very happy to see Boas online. Eventually I hope to track down > an out of copywright version of his writings and scan it for PG. It'll be a long time, unless you move to Canada. The last of his works are out of print for another 7 years in the EU and 33 years in the US. The Bureau of American Ethnology volumes are being worked on up to 1930 (since it's a US government publication) and I believe that includes some work by Boas. > In chapter 5 > there might be a very quotable sentence- but what my student doesn't know is > that this sentence was changed in later editions. And there's no page > number- does he tell his teacher to read the entire chapter to find a > sentence that won't be there in a later edition? What is he supposed to do, give a page reference to one of a dozen editions that might be very hard for the teacher to find? With etexts, you know that your recipent has access to the same edition you have. And as someone else pointed out, if you quote the sentence, the context can be found in seconds. > After all, I > have no idea who JM Rodwell was, or whether his translation of The Koran is > the definitive English version, or why his translation was chosen- other > than that his book was out of copyright. From my point of view, that's a red > flag itself. If this translation is so superb, why isn't it still being > used- or is it? And how do I know that if I pull it off the library shelves? My college library has a half dozen different translations of the Koran; how am I to know which are in use? As for the reason it's not being used, I would suggest that the fact that academics like to retranslate everything every decade might be an explanation. My class used a modern translation of the Iliad, but that doesn't mean that in several hundred years of English translation of the work that's now public domain, there's not one competent, even superb translation. > Nietzsche's work for instance, was butchered by his sister. There are > conflicting copies of his work floating around. When his works were copied > for Project Gutenberg, did someone go for an out of copyright copy that is > definitive, or one that his sister chopped up? Did that matter, or was it > just more important to get a copy up? I doubt that the people who scanned it were aware of the differences. -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm

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Re: [gutvol-d] PG audience
by D. Starner 13 Nov '04

13 Nov '04

Brad Collins <brad(a)chenla.org> writes: > The OED is an example of this. Oxford has pumped a huge amount of > money into the dictionary, but the dictionary has also been built > with an enormous amount of volunteer help. There are no libraries > anywhere near where I live in Bangkok with a copy of the OED which I > can use. Since I don't have a credit card, I can't get access to the > online edition even if I had the money to pay for it. And I understand that despite how much it costs, it has never turned a profit in the history of its existance. Oxford keeps people working on it because of its importance, not as a profit making venture. -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm

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Re: [gutvol-d] Scholarly use of PG
by Jon Noring 13 Nov '04

13 Nov '04

Michael Hart supposedly wrote: > I've also heard that many of those who complain, actually use our > eBooks in secret, and ONLY want the provenance so they can steal > them without giving credit where credit is due. Michael, Michael, Michael -- you're grasping at straws trying to justify not providing the provenance of any PG works. Let's analyze what you wrote. Here's a portion of the Boilerplate, the "TOU" (Terms of Use) from a 2004 text. (from ftp://sailor.gutenberg.org/pub/gutenberg/etext04/ge71v10.txt ) ********************************************************************** DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this "Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, or: [Snip of various restrictions when the small print is kept, including paying a 20% royalty if profits are made from the work.] ********************************************************************** Parsing the Distribution Notice, we see two and only two scenarios (due to the "either/or" construct): 1) Anyone may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by *any other medium* (implying conversion), without *any* stated restrictions whatsoever so long as the "small print" and any references to the name "Project Gutenberg" are removed (that is, no one will know for sure the work came from the PG Library.) 2) Follow the restrictions if the "small print" and/or "Project Gutenberg" is mentioned as the source. Michael, PG *is allowing* people to use PG's texts "in secret" (whatever that means), and is welcoming them to be used that way! You are essentially saying they should not use them this way, in contradiction to PG's own small print. There are several strong arguments for including the provenance of PG texts in metadata, which have been discussed ad nauseum here by quite a few sharp people. For example, the leaders and several volunteers of DP have stated it is a good thing to do (and I believe some of them have said it should be a basic requirement.) What I suggest PG does is to take a poll, using an independent forum, of the various volunteers and users of PG texts, and *ask them* the following question: Should PG include the full details of the source document(s) used to produce every PG text? Supposing 2/3 of the respondents said 'yes'. Would PG honor the wishes of the volunteers and users by then requiring the source information be included in the text's metadata? Note that over the years the PG volunteers have put in hundreds of thousands hours (and maybe over a million hours) of time to help build the PG Library collection. They have a valid claim of "moral co-ownership" of what has been produced, and should collectively have their say in the future development of the collection. (One reason why I believe PGLAF should become a member-"owned" organization -- currently its Articles of Corporation state it has no members.) Michael, I'd like to hear from you *all* the reasons you have for why the provenance of PG texts should not be included in the metadata. How does providing the provenance harm the goals of PG? I have yet to hear a cogent and logical argument. Why not write a specific FAQ on this topic? Jon Noring

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Re: [gutvol-d] PG audience
by Joshua Hutchinson 13 Nov '04

13 Nov '04

----- Original Message ----- From: Marcello Perathoner <marcello(a)perathoner.de> > > Janet Kegg wrote: > > > Would it be somehow useful if I > > include the url to the DP project page in the comments section of the > > upload form? > > > It would be useful to include the dp project number in some form. We > have a discussion ongoing with Joshua on how to achieve this. > Yep, pretty easy to implement in the teiHeader. And then it can be used by Marcello's script to link back to the DP project commments fairly easily. At this point, I figure it will be in there in the final specs. Josh

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Linking back to DP to get page scans [Was: PG audience]
by John Hagerson 13 Nov '04

13 Nov '04

Joshua Hutchinson wrote: >Whether the link back to DP would be useful or not I leave to others to >decide. However, when we get to the point ... someday ... of providing >the original page scans (for those that we can), I wouldn't be surprised >to see the projectID used as the value to tie back to them. So, let's >put the projectID in there for now. It definitely doesn't hurt anything. While it won't hurt anything, a DP ID might not have any significance for linking to page scans. DP periodically archives finished projects and takes them off line. If we would need to bring scans back on line, it would make more sense to me to restore them to a directory named with the PG eBook number and not the hexadecimal alphabet soup ID that DP uses.

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Re: Marking bold & italics in .txt (was Re: [gutvol-d] a few questions that i don't know the answer to)
by Jim Tinsley 13 Nov '04

13 Nov '04

On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 23:33:29 -0800, Greg Newby <gbnewby(a)pglaf.org> wrote: >On Thu, Nov 11, 2004 at 11:00:52PM -0500, Bowerbird(a)aol.com wrote: >> second, for greg. people over at distributed proofreaders >> have reported that the f.a.q. here at project gutenberg >> do not state that styled text (specifically, italics and bold) >> be marked with underbars and asterisks in the text files. >> the understanding i have from you is that this has become >> the official policy of project gutenberg. if that's not the case, >> would you please inform people here? and if it _is_ the case, >> when you next update the f.a.q., could you include this policy? >> thank you. > >Jim maintains the FAQ, and DP has their own style guides that >sometimes vary for different texts. So, I'm not really the right guy >to ask. I don't think there was agreement on how to handle bold >& italics, but I do think everyone I heard from agreed it should be >indicated somehow in plain text. > >So, I don't think there is an official policy on handling >bold & italics in plain text files. But if DP has an official >policy I'm unaware of, then it should probably be reflected >in the FAQ as a recommendation. > >Sorry I don't know the current state on this, but perhaps >Jim or some of the DP project managers can contribute the >latest thinking. Italics is well covered at http://gutenberg.net/faq/V-94 http://gutenberg.net/faq/V-95 About three years or so ago, 'most everyone settled on _underscores_ for italics, with a few holdouts for /slants/. CAPITALS, of course, are still represented in a lot of older texts, but I haven't seen anyone using them in a new text for quite some time. Compared to italics, bold as a method of emphasizing text, as opposed to bold as an incidental property of a heading, is relatively rare. Where bold does need to be rendered in plain text, the current most common usage (from DP) is *bold text*. There are times when it is appropriate to signify bold, but I have seen some texts coming from DP where it has been used unnecessarily -- mostly to indicate a sub-heading or chapter title in the book. In such a case, where a chapter title is clearly a chapter title and on a line by itself, there really is no need to mark it in the plain text version as having been bold face in the original. I think this practice comes from people pre-marking the text for later conversion to HTML, rather than any intent to clutter the plain text. jim

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Perfection
by Norm Wolcott 12 Nov '04

12 Nov '04

Instead of worrying about perfection, we would be better advised to fix the many texts which are or have become unreadable. It is also uncomfortable, when there are several translations of a work with the same title and an anonymous translator to havve the publisher routinely or randomly removed. Also there are many DOS texts with accents that are hence unreadable. Any code page should be acceptable? maybe but. . . Also although there are explicit directions for submitting a text, correcting one or updataing one, even one I contributed, has apparently no explicit provision. Also, at random apparently, a little preamble I have added to help the reader identify the text or its possible shortcomings is removed. Although many texts shave no unique provenance as MH has advised, but that is no reason for removing any hint of preovenance when one is supplied by a contributor. nwolcott2(a)post.harvard.edu Friar Wolcott, Gutenberg Abbey, Sherwood Forrest keeping the inkpots full.

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