June 2006 - gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

re: !@!Re: [gutvol-d] Kevin Kelly in NYT on future of digital libraries
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 01 Jun '06

01 Jun '06

yahoo has enough money to generate press any time they want. but you have to take that money out of your pocket to do it... so the answer is that they haven't wanted it enough. indeed, the only contribution to o.c.a. that i've seen acknowledged is a $5-million one from microsoft. which is pretty much peanuts, coming from a company as rich as microsoft, and we all know it... i get the impression everyone at o.c.a. -- except maybe brewster -- is trying to go the cheap route. might work that way, or might not, but o.c.a. certainly ain't gonna get much publicity without buyin' it. -bowerbird

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re: !@!Re: [gutvol-d] Kevin Kelly in NYT on future of digital libraries
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 01 Jun '06

01 Jun '06

michael said: > Please stop quoting from what I said about illustrations > when bandwidth was a serious issue. . .not that everyone > has broadband these days. . .or wants pictures; however, > the point was made long ago when making an eBook larger, > often many times larger, would stop people from reading. i too have changed my position on this only recently, when the penetration of broadband in homes in the u.s. passed over 50%. but like you, i am still cognizant that not everyone has broadband, and that those who don't are on the poor side of the digital divide and thus must be given priority in our thinking. since this has been a cornerstone of my thinking all along, i'm sure it will continue to be. i know -- personally -- many people with hand-me-down machinery, far too many for me to have this vital issue slip from my radar-screen... -bowerbird p.s. i myself just moved to an ibook g4 with o.s.x. a little over a year ago...

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re: !@!Re: [gutvol-d] Kevin Kelly in NYT on future of digital libraries
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 01 Jun '06

01 Jun '06

michael said: > as I have had multiple comments from our readers that they > LIKE not having such boringly justified right margination, > as it helps them better keep track of what line is next. and the beauty of a good viewer-app is it lets each user decide. > As for the footnotes, I still agree with those who want an > appendix containing all of them, rather than having breaks > between pages contain them. it doesn't have to be "either/or" with e-books, it can be "both". > I like this with paper books, and even more with eBooks, as it is > trivial to switch from the text to the footnote and back again. i think it's even better to have both displayed at the same time; no switching required. > I'll leave the pagination and margination issues to reader > choice as their own personal decisions, along with fonts. i agree. -bowerbird

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re: !@!Re: [gutvol-d] Kevin Kelly in NYT on future of digital libraries
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 01 Jun '06

01 Jun '06

sebastien said: > Most of the time the original typesetting does not matter much. different people can disagree on that. > I believe you are missing the point. > Michael doesn't care as much about collections of pictures > as he does about digitalized text. different people disagree with michael. > As long as scans and/or OCR technologies are so disappointing, > we'll have to rely on higher-level humain brains with initiatives > such as PGDP or ebooksgratuits.com or methodologies which are better. > Of course having easy access to pictures is useful and > much better than nothing and serves you well, but > that's not what PG and ebooks are about. different people can disagree on that too. > ebooks are much more than photographs of regular analog books. yes, but photographs of regular analog books _might_ qualify as e-books, for _some_ people. different people can disagree on that too. > 3. is the top we are heading for. 2. is just a step on the way. but #2 might serve the needs of person x just fine. > I did that and got > 20845628 bytes for 604 pages. scans are resource hogs. nobody disagrees about that. one argument is that since these resources are now plentiful, it doesn't matter that scans are resource hogs. different people can disagree on that too. as long as we can easily move scan-sets to digitized text, i don't see much purpose in continuing to debate these two as if they were competitors. they're not. they're complimentary. -bowerbird

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re: !@!Re: [gutvol-d] Kevin Kelly in NYT on future of digital libraries
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 01 Jun '06

01 Jun '06

karl said: > Sure, these ASCII files are also useful for special purposes, > but telling us again and again that's the best solution > for all books and all times, is highly arguable. to my mind, the only problem with the ascii files is the absence of book typography -- bold headings, justified lines, bottom-balanced pages, pagination!, properly rendered footnotes, all the looks-nice stuff, leading to a display that is so boring it becomes tedium. fortunately, i've found with my z.m.l. that an intelligent viewer-program can figure out all of that stuff itself, given a reasonable amount of easily-done "hinting", and apply it, which removes this "only problem" and makes the ascii files "the best solution" for most books, most of the time. -bowerbird

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Image Binarisation
by joey 01 Jun '06

01 Jun '06

Came across an interesting link today in my regular emails from the ACM: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/option/print.php?newsid=30004943

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Books containing works from several sources
by Dave Fawthrop 01 Jun '06

01 Jun '06

One of ?my? Authors, John Hartley, wrote some 1000 short pieces of poetry and prose only about 1/2 were published in books, some of which book are already on PG. The rest were published in the Clock Almanack, Penney Broadsheets, dated up to 1915,and the like. All out of Copyright to both US and EU, life+70 systems. The Almanacks were sort of Desk Calendars, which along with the dialect works had *many* pages of adverts, "A Chronological Table of the Principal Events in Yorkshire History, Changes of the moon, Festivals ... Original puns and conundrums, etc", Rambling Remarks, etc. which IMO will no longer be of interest to the modern reader. All the above were always omitted from books which were compiled from works in the Clock Almanacks I would hope at some time to collect those short works into groups of about 50 for PG. This would involve me, as editor, in choosing/collecting/assembling the works from various sources. Working title would be "Lost Works of John Hartley", or "John Hartley's unrepublished Works from the Clock Almanacks ???? to ????", It would clearly be a good idea to state in which dated copy of Clock Almanack each work could be found. It should take two to five Clock Almanacks to make a PG book. As PG is set up for whole books this would leave a problem with copyright clearance. I have copies of the Contents Page for each yearly Almanack which would clear OK, but any subsequent book edited by me would cause problems, because it would contain work from more than one source. Any ideas? -- Dave Fawthrop <dave hyphenologist co uk> "Intelligent Design?" my knees say *not*. "Intelligent Design?" my back says *not*. More like "Incompetent design". Sig (C) Copyright Public Domain

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