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brewster kahle responds -- someone needs to (fwd)
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 31 Jul '09

31 Jul '09

michael hart forwarded my post to brewster kahle, who responded: > bowerbird-- > > some very active volunteers have been taking the downloadable > pdf's from google's site and uploading them to the archive. > the archive stores these, OCR's them to make them searchable, > and if someone wants the pdf-- points them back to google. > > we would like to see more of this. if there are volunteers > to expand this program, we would like to play our part. > > -brewster i admit the internet archive has fallen off my radar somewhat -- ever since i was banned from their listserves because i had the temerity to continue complaining about their o.c.r. flaws -- but i should have remembered that they are indeed remounting google's public-domain scans, and deserve kudos for doing so. so thank you, brewster, and internet archive. "universal access to knowledge" has always appealed to me, by virtue of its deep simplicity, but i find that more and more, lately, brewster, i am chagrined that google has subverted it... instead of a global library, we're getting a global book-store... and "free to all" increasingly means "dig out your wallet"... -bowerbird ************** An Excellent Credit Score is 750. See Yours in Just 2 Easy Steps! (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1222846709x1201493018/aol?redir=htt… bcd=JulyExcfooterNO62)

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someone needs to
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 30 Jul '09

30 Jul '09

someone needs to remount independently the scan-set from every single public-domain book that google has scanned... might that be project gutenberg? if not, then someone else needs to do it. because it needs to be done... those books don't belong to google, or to sony, or to barnes & noble, or to anyone else that google decides to share them with. those books belong to the public. -bowerbird ************** Hot Deals at Dell on Popular Laptops perfect for Back to School (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1223106546x1201717234/aol?redir=htt…)

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How To Get and Use eBooks on Cell Phones
by Michael S. Hart 30 Jul '09

30 Jul '09

How To Get and Use eBooks on Cell Phones This is a request for anyone to submit ideas for little "How To's" for their particular brands and models of cell phones. Nothing fancy to start off with, just the bare bones of how to get the eBook into the phones and how to read them in comfortable ways in terms of setting font size, zoom, or the like. Eventually we hope to create "How To" files for each model, and in ways that will encourage a greater usage of the nearly 4.5 billion cell phones now in use, and to give some worthwhile uses to phones that are no longer in service, but still work well as eReaders. If your phone has WiFi built in, so much the better. If nothing more, please just send the barest outline, and we would hope to get others to fill it in to make it more user friendly. Many Many Thanks!!! Michael S. Hart Founder Project Gutenberg Inventor of ebooks If you ever do not get a prompt response, please resend, then keep resending, I won't mind getting several copies per week.

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Re: !@! Barnes & Noble Unveils Online Bookstore to Compete Directly With Amazon
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 27 Jul '09

27 Jul '09

b&n won't be able to compete with the kindle 3: > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI0Zry_R4RQ "i can't hear you; i'm reading!" -bowerbird ************** An Excellent Credit Score is 750. See Yours in Just 2 Easy Steps! (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1221823322x1201398723/aol?redir=htt… bcd=JulyExcfooterNO62)

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Compilation ideas
by Greg M. Johnson 27 Jul '09

27 Jul '09

First of all, apologies for the triplicate submissions on the same topic. I wasn't getting through to the list. Secondly, the question about resource use with the plucker list underscores my idea that we should be encouraging torrent-downloads of format-specific DVDs, arranged with some sort of genre or index stronger than merely alphabetical author & title. In a real bookstore, folks might want to peek at the first two pages of dozens of books before they buy. In ebooks, is there a way to serve the customer and save bandwidth? This is one way. I'm working on a compilation DVD in HTML format. If I were to do it over again, and had a computer to select things, I'd do something like this: 1) Find "Best of" lists. Some IIRC were on the pg web site. I'd start with the one about 100 books to read for a liberal education. Then add a well-rounded selection of items from "best of " lists for other genres: mystery, history of science, history, scifi, religion, etc., etc... 2) Figure out how much space you have and what format sceme (all, plucker, zipped txt's, HTML, etc.) you're going to concentrate on. 3) Start with the #1 item on every list. Add the complete works of each author. (My idea is that the most obscure work of Author #1 may be more fun to read than the everyone-knows item from Author #99. ) Continue down the list until you've filled up your space requirement. (If you're doing HTML format, skip the >20 MB books. ) 4) Indices: Author Alphabetical, Title Alphabetical, LOC classification (not my original idea this one), and editors' picks. ( Strongly encourage 3-12 well-read and opinionated folks to come up with "Editor's Picks" lists.) -- Greg M. Johnson http://pterandon.blogspot.com

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Fwd: Programmatic fetching books from Gutenberg
by Paulo Levi 27 Jul '09

27 Jul '09

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Paulo Levi <i30817(a)gmail.com> Date: Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 1:25 AM Subject: Programmatic fetching books from Gutenberg To: gutvol-p(a)lists.pglaf.org I made a ebook reader (here) http://code.google.com/p/bookjar/downloads/list and i'd like to search and download Gutenberg books. I already have a searcher prototype using LuceneSail a library that uses Lucene to index rdf documents and only indexing what i want from the catalog.rdf.zip. Now i'd like to know how from the url inside the catalog i can fetch the book itself, and what are the variants for the formats. A example query result: author: Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 url: http://www.gutenberg.org/feeds/catalog.rdf#etext1802 title: King Henry VIII So, i like to know how from the etext1802 number can i get a working url to download the book, and how to construct variants for each format. Thank you in advance.

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!@! Barnes & Noble Unveils Online Bookstore to Compete Directly With Amazon
by Michael S. Hart 21 Jul '09

21 Jul '09

http://tinyurl.com/np5ke2 "Top U.S. bookseller Barnes & Noble (BKS) announced Monday the launch of the world's largest online bookstore, with over 700,000 titles that can be read on a range of platforms from Apple's iPhone to personal computers. Sounding a challenge to online retailer Amazon, the company said its selection would grow to over 1 million titles within the next year and include every available e-book from every book publisher."

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Suggestions for the DVD must haves?
by Aaron Cannon 20 Jul '09

20 Jul '09

Hi all. I would like some recommendations on some books from the collection that you feel should be included on the DVD. Remember that all books that have text versions and that aren't data get included. However, what books should have their HTML versions included as well? Which other nontext works (such as mp3, films, ETC.) should be included? Email me your recommendations privately or reply to the list, as you prefer. Thanks. Aaron

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Re: !@! Re: A new DVD?
by Aaron Cannon 18 Jul '09

18 Jul '09

Hi Michael. You are probably right about the CDs. When CDs are requested, we always send two. I don't think I know who Richard Seltzer is or what he does. Like you, I have been watching dual layer DVDs, but the price is still quite high. Shop4tech.com has them for $2.50. It doesn't make sense considering that one single layer DVD costs just $0.26. Thanks. Aaron On 7/16/09, Michael S. Hart <hart(a)pobox.com> wrote: > > > First thoughts: > > I've not sure there is any need to send CDs except when requested, > and they will be, probably by those who need them most, but we are > here and now living mostly in an age DVDs, so send two of them. > > When they ask for CDs, send two of those. . .even if the same one. > > We can also refer people to Richard Seltzer. > > I should also mention dual layered DVDs, but every time I look the > price still seems too high. > > More thoughts? > > MH > > > > On Thu, 16 Jul 2009, Aaron Cannon wrote: > >> Hi all. >> >> I'm sorry for disappearing for a while. I've been dealing with some >> health issues, work, and school, but mainly health. Anyway, I think >> it may be time to create a new DVD. The latest one is 3 years old >> this month. However, the project has obviously grown drastically in >> that time, so I'm wondering if one DVD still makes sense? >> >> The drawbacks to creating a 2 DVD collection that immediately come to mind >> are: >> 1. In the DVD/CD mailing project, we have consistently been sending >> two copies of the DVD, or a DVD and CD. This will either have to >> change, or we will have to pay more for postage. >> 2. It takes twice as long to download. On the other hand, if you can >> download 4GB, it's probably not that big of a stretch to download 8. >> 3. It's not as elegant as one DVD. This is probably the least >> important, but just thought I'd mention it as it might prove important >> to some. >> >> It is of course possible to stick with just one DVD, but it will >> require leaving out a lot. >> >> Any thoughts/ideas? >> >> Aaron >> _______________________________________________ >> gutvol-d mailing list >> gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org >> http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/listinfo/gutvol-d >> > _______________________________________________ > gutvol-d mailing list > gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org > http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/listinfo/gutvol-d >

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Re: A new DVD?
by Christa & Jay Toser 18 Jul '09

18 Jul '09

Hi, Time for me to put my two cents worth in. I do a good-sized chunk of the international mailings for the Gutenberg project. These are the physical discs that are sent out, not any of the internet downloads. Point One: We cannot abandon the legacy of a CD. Most of Africa, and many ex-Soviet satellite nations, do not have personal computers that can read DVD's. For instance, the One Laptop Per Child computer can only read CD's. Perhaps the Gutenberg Project can update their CD to include the 630 most popular books from 2009 (instead of from 2003), but we must maintain a CD. Point Two: We must update the DVD. Folk in India have noticed that the current DVD holds about 10,000 fewer books than are on-line. They wonder why we are behind the times. Point Three: On the internet downloads, yes we can have a dual-layer or Blue-Ray disk image. Wonderful. BUT in the physical world, we will have to stick with the standard DVD format. We must understand that much of the world will continue with older legacy formats for at least the next decade. Which means, the next release of the DVD will probably have to be a set of two discs. Point Four: Mailing of discs. Currently, I mail two copies of the DVD (or CD) for every request. The philosophy has always been: "Keep one copy, and give the other copy to your local school or library." This has worked pretty well at the current postage costs. However, if I have to mail four discs, then costs of mailing will go up. I propose this change: Any requester may ask for one single personal copy of the two DVD's. _AND_ there should be an additional checkbox for them to ask for a second set of DVD's for them to give away. That way, I would normally send out only the two DVD's (for the single personal copy) -- unless the requester wants more -- and then I would spend the greater postage to send the extra discs. Critics may ask: "If I send a second set of discs, will that extra set be personally delivered to the other destination?" I say, Oh yes, I GUARANTEE IT. Americans simply do not realize just how much the rest of the wold values books. If someone says they will deliver the duplicates -- then they WILL. It would be worth it to the Gutenberg Project to pay the extra postage for the duplicate DVD's. Point Four-and-a-Half: No, DVD BURNERS are not as common as you think. Lots of folk across the world can READ a DVD, but not so many can BURN a DVD. As much as these requesters would want to make copies -- they just can't. Point Five: Download time. The debate I have read in the last couple days, does not seem to take into account internet access. They seem to think just anyone can download the DVD (or Blue-Ray) images easily. That is not the case in most of the world. I currently have 56K dial-up. If I were to download a (hypothetical) 2-DVD set, that download would complete, oh, about October. And yet, I do not experience the incredible delays seen in the Palestinian Territories, or some of the emerging Communist nations, or much of Africa -- there the best speed can be as low as 9600 baud (2.4K). Whenever Project Gutenberg creates the be-all-end-all Blue-Ray DVD disk which contains everything in the project -- then about 2/3rds of the world will not have the bandwidth to access any of it. So, I recommend moderation in whatever you create. Please keep in mind the legacy DVD & CD standards that are already in place; that the world currently can read; and try to create the new discs so that (almost) anyone can read them. Hope this helps, Jay Toser P.S. Should any of these new discs be created, will someone remember to mail to me, a hard copy? As I've said, I'm not going to be able to download a copy. That's why I do the international mailings.

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