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

DOWNLOADING STARTS AT GOOGLE BOOK SEARCH
by Michael Hart 04 Sep '06

04 Sep '06

Google's controversial Book Search program is set to begin offering downloads of entire out-of-copyright texts. Until now, books in the program were available online only. With the option to download texts, users can now easily search those texts, print copies of them, or keep local copies on their computers to read offline. Books still under copyright protection are not available for download. Instead, small sections of text are online for users to view, unless the copyright owner grants Google permission to show more text. Many publishers and others have objected to Google's model, saying that even scanning copyrighted books and displaying snippets of them violates their copyright. Sidney Verba, director of the Harvard University Library, one of the libraries participating in the program, said that the ability to search texts allows users to "find previously buried information about historical events or people, places of interest, and matters cultural or scientific." Wall Street Journal, 30 August 2006 (sub. req'd) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115694354228349458.html Can anyone get me the whole article? Thanks! michael

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I received this statistic a while back,
by Wallace J.McLean 04 Sep '06

04 Sep '06

Not sure if those numbers are accurate, or even how anyone would have been able to come up with them, but that proportion actually looks high to my eyes. I did an experiment a while back involving books by authors who died in 1950. My sample size wasn't huge, but I did try to (a) include as many non-famous as well as famous authors who died that year, and (b) track down the title of every full-fledged book that they had published, in Canada, the UK, or the US. Then I tracked down every discrete edition I could find, including translations, adaptations, and video adaptations, as well as, in a separate category, "special editions", into which I lumped the PG editions of works that are cropping up in library catalogs, and audio or digital books prepared most likely under exemptions for the blind and visually impaired. In 1950 — the year in which the authors in question died — 12% of their collected works were still in "print" (i.e., available in all editions but "special", supra), or would be in print again at some time in the next fifty years. By 2000, the last year these works are in copyright in the life+50 universe, which is, propaganda notwithstand, most of Earth, that figure was 1.2%. After I enlarged my sample, the proportions didn't change that much, so I think the Law of Large Numbers is at work. I haven't yet constructed a model that accounts for works going out of, and then coming back into print; this model assumes that if a work was in print in 1994, it was also in print in every year going back to first publication. Given that there was a HUGE explosion of publishing in the second half of the 20th century, at least in Canada, and I'd be willing to bet in most of the developed world as well, if not the under-developed too, and that few of those works have enjoyed more than one edition, the 1/16 ratio of in-print&copyrighted to all-ever-published&copyrighted, is probably an over-estimate. I'd like to keep doing some research on this front, but I'm not sure I have time. It is, however, something that could probably be done in a distributed fashion. Anyone who's interested, talk to me. ----- Original Message ----- >From Michael Hart <hart(a)pglaf.org> Date Mon, 4 Sep 2006 09:03:16 -0700 (PDT) To The gutvol-d Mailing List <gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org> Subject [gutvol-d] I received this statistic a while back, that only 2 million of 32 million books under copyright are actually in print. Does anyone know the source? Thanks!!!

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I received this statistic a while back,
by Michael Hart 04 Sep '06

04 Sep '06

that only 2 million of 32 million books under copyright are actually in print. Does anyone know the source? Thanks!!! mh

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32 Million (C) Books/2 Million In Print
by Michael Hart 04 Sep '06

04 Sep '06

I received this statistic a while back, that only 2 million of 32 million books under copyright are actually in print. Does anyone know the source? Thanks!!! mh

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Project Gutenberg in Georgia
by Andrew Sly 02 Sep '06

02 Sep '06

It's nice to see mention of Project Gutenberg in this article: http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/local/states/georgia/counties/houston_p… Andrew

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Google: Download the classics
by Tony Baechler 01 Sep '06

01 Sep '06

Hello all. Sorry if this is old news. Considering the recent discussions on the list about Google, I thought you might find this interesting. From what I can tell by the urls, they are using the LCCN for at least some titles. I also couldn't help but notice that PG already has some of these if not all. The following is from the official Google blog: Posted by Adam Mathes, Associate Product Manager, Google Book Search Starting today, you can go to [Google Book Search][1] and download full copies of out-of-copyright books to read at your own pace. You're free to choose from a diverse collection of public domain titles -- from well-known classics to obscure gems. Before the rise of the public library -??? a story chronicled in this 1897 edition of [The Free Library][2] ??? access to large collections of books was the privilege of a wealthy minority. Now, with the help of our wonderful [library partners][3], we're able to offer you the ability to download and read PDF versions of out-of-copyright books from some of the world???s greatest collections. Using Google Book Search, you can find The Free Library and many other extraordinary old books, such as: * Ferriar's [The Bibliomania][4] * A futurist from 1881's [1931: A Glance at the Twentieth Century][5] * Aesop's [Fables][6][][7] * Shakespeare's [Hamlet][8] * Abbott's [Flatland][9] * Hugo's [Marion De Lorme][10] * Dunant's [Eine Erinnerung an Solferino][11] * Bol??var's [Proclamas][12] * Dante's [Inferno][13] To find out-of-copyright books that you can download, simply select the "Full view" radio button when you search on books.google.com. (Please note that we do not enable downloading of any book currently under copyright. Unless we have the publisher???s permission to show more, we display only small snippets of text ???- at most, two or three sentences surrounding your search term -??? to help you determine if you???ve found what you???re looking for.) Of course, this is just the beginning. As we digitize more of the world's books -- whether rare, common, popular or obscure -- people everywhere will be able to discover them on Google Book Search. [1]: http://books.google.com/ (Google Book Search) [2]: http://books.google.com/books?vid=LCCN02006048&id=AJCpexX5NUMC&pg=PA3 (The Free Library) [3]: http://books.google.com/googlebooks/partners.html (library partners) [4]: http://books.google.com/books?vid=HARVARD32044024329419&pg=PA3 (The Bibliomania) [5]: http://books.google.com/books?vid=UOM39015004715002&pg=PA1 (Glance at the 20th century) [6]: http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC03465111&printsec=titlepage (Fables) [7]: http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC05716993&printsec=titlepage (Principia) [8]: http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC14763089&id=2-iPD1DrwgYC&pg=PA3 (Hamlet) [9]: http://books.google.com/books?vid=0PO8Zb8GuSvhGZx2&id=u8HOxy7lQYUC&printsec… (Flatland) [10]: http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC12330174&id=ZEGJW5a0IfoC&pg=PP11 (Marion De Lorme) [11]: http://books.google.com/books?vid=HARVARD32044012475109&printsec=titlepage (Eine Erinnerung an Solferino) [12]: http://books.google.com/books?id=W162EMZdSVwC&vid=HARVARD32044048104251&jtp… (Proclamas) [13]: http://books.google.it/books?vid=OCLC13779284&id=iQ5Glx7BGZkC&printsec=titl… (Inferno) URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/download-classics.html ----- End forwarded message -----

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PG Wiki
by Aaron Cannon 01 Sep '06

01 Sep '06

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi Marcello and all. Any word on when the static content on Gutenberg.org will be done away with and replaced by the wiki? Also, congratulations Italy! That was an intense game. :) Sincerely Aaron Cannon - -- Skype: cannona MSN/Windows Messenger: cannona(a)hotmail.com (don't send email to the hotmail address.) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.3 (MingW32) - GPGrelay v0.959 Comment: Key available from all major key servers. iD8DBQFEsXr7I7J99hVZuJcRAi4SAJ9VGglvtmHeHrqaq8xGjtDgyKTckwCgo2Ow eWxF9+N2OTZk7QHmv6Qof7Y= =/56y -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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