March 2005 - gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

re: [gutvol-d] Humanities Computing conference
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 24 Mar '05

24 Mar '05

andrew said: > Just to avoid confusing other PG volunteers too much wouldn't want anyone to be confused... as for the conference, i say go for it. it would be nice if _someone_ here could answer questions about t.e.i. -bowerbird

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Re: [gutvol-d] Spam on PG lists?
by JBuck814366460＠aol.com 24 Mar '05

24 Mar '05

> Isn't the list open to subscribers-only? If not, I suggest > moving it to that model. I agree, if it isn't subscriber-only, it should be as soon as possible. The spam is very annoying and doesn't belong on the list. Jared

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Slashdot on Google Print
by Marcello Perathoner 22 Mar '05

22 Mar '05

Discussion about Google Print mentions PG too. http://slashdot.org/articles/05/03/21/1237243.shtml -- Marcello Perathoner webmaster(a)gutenberg.org

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Online TEI page and the recent server move
by Joshua Hutchinson 20 Mar '05

20 Mar '05

I know Marcello has been talking about some server moves that have been taking place recently. Starting this week, the online TEI conversion tools at: http://www.gutenberg.org/tei/services/tei-online have quit working. I thought at first it might be my local firewall or an overloaded server (it does cause problems once in a while). However, it has been down all week for me, so I'm starting to think it may be due to the server move. My question is: Is this the cause and is this something that is going to get fixed in time? Should I just be patient? Also, as a sidenote question, since the PG server can get overwhelmed sometimes, would this be better server over on the DP server? (It seems to fit better over with that work load anyway, at least in my opinion). Josh

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Re: Arabic eTexts
by Juhana Sadeharju 19 Mar '05

19 Mar '05

Are those Arabic OCR software open source and free? Having no Arabic OCR software has not prevented us from digitizing Arabic texts earlier. If only buying a $$$$ software gets you motivated to digitize arabic texts, then it is fine by me. However, I feel the arabic texts should be digitized first as image files. Specially if the text is written by hand. This apparoach will be cheaper and faster as well. Please don't make the mistage of not archiving and making available the images if you choose the OCR approach. I'm pleased to archive any arabic digitizations as image files for now and for future use. Only image files can preserve the text as close to original as possible. Juhana -- http://music.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/linux-graphics-dev for developers of open source graphics software

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Re: [gutvol-d] Another PG 'clone'
by Joshua Hutchinson 15 Mar '05

15 Mar '05

The site makes it very clear on the front page that they are not affliated with PG, so I've got no problem with it. I'd prefer a different domain name, but obviously we don't own the domain name, so it was free for anyone to take, I suppose. At least this one is actually something to do with eBooks and not a porn site or something... :) Josh ----- Original Message ----- From: "Marcello Perathoner" <marcello(a)perathoner.de> To: "Project Gutenberg volunteer discussion" <gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org> Subject: [gutvol-d] Another PG 'clone' Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 20:06:05 +0100 > > How do we like this one? > > http://www.gutenberg.com > > > -- Marcello Perathoner > webmaster(a)gutenberg.org > > _______________________________________________ > gutvol-d mailing list > gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d

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FWD: converting text into audio for reader format
by Greg Newby 15 Mar '05

15 Mar '05

Please see the below - the question is, what eBook readers with text to speech capabilities can input a .txt file (versus .htm etc.) Please copy Donna Woodstock <donna.woodstock(a)sheridanc.on.ca> or respond to her directly with any suggestions. Thanks! On Wed, Feb 02, 2005 at 03:21:13PM -0500, Donna Woodstock wrote: > Hi Greg, > > If it's no trouble to forward to the list that would be appreciated. I > tried searching for a html format for Frankenstein...it shows it is > available but it still downloads as a .txt file. > > Cheers! > > Greg Newby wrote: > >On Wed, Feb 02, 2005 at 01:58:30PM -0500, Donna Woodstock wrote: > > > >>I am wondering if it is possible when an ebook is downloaded to be able > >>to open it up in a reader that has audio capabilities. I've tried > >>Microsoft reader but I cannot get it to read the text format. If you > >>can recommend a reader that can do this I would greatly appreciate it. > > > > > >Hi, Donna. We've had people using products like ViaVoice and > >other text-to-speech programs. I don't know anything about Microsoft > >Reader's audio capabilities - it might be it's not capable > >of processing .txt files. Perhaps you could try one of our > >titles in HTML (see http://gutenberg.org/find)? Or, it might > >be necessary to transform a .txt to the proprietary Reader > >format. I know people can do this, but we don't have any > >information about the tools. If you're still stuck, I can > >forward your note to the gutvol-d list (http://lists.pglaf.org) > >to see whether people can provide some more specific guidance. > > > >Sorry this isn't too helpful... > > -- Greg Newby >

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Another PG 'clone'
by Marcello Perathoner 14 Mar '05

14 Mar '05

How do we like this one? http://www.gutenberg.com -- Marcello Perathoner webmaster(a)gutenberg.org

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Announce: web site directory switch
by Marcello Perathoner 14 Mar '05

14 Mar '05

We are switching directories on the web site as announced on 02/23. If you have changed any content since then you should test it now. The old directories are still there if you forgot to copy things over. -- Marcello Perathoner webmaster(a)gutenberg.org

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Scanning/OCR tips
by Carlo Traverso 14 Mar '05

14 Mar '05

In margin of the BB-Jon discussion, I would like to issue a warning from my experience with FineReader OCR: it is not true that higher resolution scans always provide better OCR. Often they cause minute imperfections of the original print to be recognized as letters, punctuations or diacritics. Sometimes it pays to reduce the resolution of the scans to 300DPI and use the reduced images; FineReader seems to expect 300DPI scans. Higher resolution is only better with very small type. I think that this is a bug of FineeReader (should not recognize as letters etc. image details that are much smaller than the other characters, or incorrectly placed) but this is something on which we don't have control, except than pre-processing images. Often the higher resolution scans have different errors from reduced resolution scans; procedures to compare the OCR at different resolutions might lead to better global recognition. Globally, and not unexpectedly, the OCR seems well tuned to recent print in contemporary language. My impression is that an effort of developing free OCR software of good quality, in which the knowledge of the source can be used in the recognition process, could be well spent for the needs of PG. Another domain in which a considerable progress could be attained is the spell-checking software, that is much more tuned to typing than to OCR, especially of old texts. It is common experience that the most common OCR errors are down in the list of suggestions. This is however a domain in which free software exists, and the problem is one of a metric tuned for OCR in the corrections space. Carlo

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