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PlanetMath ebooks
by rspuzio＠planetmath.info 31 May '13

31 May '13

Greetings James, Greg, Al, et al., Now that there's a lull in the traffic, I'd like to introduce myself. I'm Ray Puzio and, over the years, I've been active at PlanetMath, which is a free online math library. Now that we've redone our software, one of the things we are working on is adding public domain math books to our offerings. For instance, here is a copy of Brenke and Davis' calculus textbook : http://planetmath.org/node/87448 (Only the first five chapters are currently available since I haven't finished proofing the rest of the book against the scans. (The full version will (hopefully) be ready in a few weeks.)) In connection with this, there were two questions I would like to ask you all. Firstly, we were thinking of adding some PG books to our collection (a few textbooks at first, but later other math books). While, of course, this can be done without asking because the copyrights have expired, out of courtesy and respect we would like to thank you for your hard work. Looking back in the list archives, I saw a post by Lee Passey on 3 March 2012 which addresses this point. Based on that post, I was thinking to do this by attaching a note like this: | This edition was derived from the Project Gutenberg edition [EBook #??] | last edited ????. That edition was produced by ????, ????, and other | anonymous volunteers. | | This edition was edited by PlanetMath and equipped with metadata in order | to accommodate the format of our collection. Does this sound good to you or would you suggest some other way? Secondly, as long we are are digitizing old books like the calculus text above, I would also like to submit them to PG. Especially after reading in the list archives about how the documentation isn't always accurate, how there are unwritten rules, etc., I would appreciate if someone experienced could help guide me through the process of going from a LaTeX file to a PG e-book. Yours Truly, Raymond Puzio Operations Manager PlanetMath.org

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digital public library of America
by Greg Newby 21 Apr '13

21 Apr '13

DPLA has launched their site. It has a lot going on. Perhaps their API could be a mechanism we could use at Project Gutenberg as another means of accessing PG content. The API: http://dp.la/info/developers/codex/ -- Greg Dr. Gregory B. Newby Chief Executive and Director Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation www.gutenberg.org A 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization with EIN 64-6221541 gbnewby(a)pglaf.org

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Problems with the new RDF/XML format
by Dennis Sheil 11 Apr '13

11 Apr '13

Hello, With regards to the RDF/XML format of the Project Gutenberg catalog - I noticed recently the catalog was updated to the new DCMI RDF recommendations. Project Gutenberg still releases the legacy RDF as well, for now. One problem I have been having is the legacy RDF contains information which the new RDF format does not. The new and legacy book catalogs both contains a lot of information. Two of the key things for me (and others) are obviously the title and author of the book. With the old legacy catalog you could always obtain the title and author of a book. This is not the case with all the books in the new catalog, especially for authors. One example is e-book #32838, "The Canadian Curler's Manual". The corresponding RDF file, pg32838.rdf ( which is at http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/32838/pg32838.rdf and is also in the compressed archive available on the website ), contains no information about authorship, editorship, contributions and so forth. With the new RDF format, I can usually find authorship information within the pgterms:agent element of the RDF property. E-book 32838 has no such element however. Looking at the legacy RDF format for ebook #32838, I can find the author. The author's name is in the dc:creator element. It notes the author of the book is "Bicket, James". This information in the legacy RDF format is absent from the new format. Neither the words James nor Bicket appear in pg32838.rdf. With only the new RDF as a resource, I have no idea who the author is. Another example is e-book #10980, "Lady John Russell: A Memoir with Selections from Her Diaries and Correspondence". The corresponding RDF file, pg10980.rdf, contains no information about authorship, editorship, contributions and so forth. Looking at the legacy RDF format for ebook 10980, I find information indicating who I can note as an author with it. Most authors in the legacy format have their information in the dc:creator element. In the case of this book, the authorship information is in the dc:contributor tag. It notes "Russell, Agatha, lady, 1853- [Editor]" as an editor, and also lists another editor, as well as two more contributors. This information in the legacy RDF format is absent from the new format. With only the new RDF as a resource, my author field appears blank, as the new RDF contains none of the four names listed in the legacy RDF. Another example is e-book #10668, "The War and Democracy". The legacy RDF lists four authors as creators. The new RDF, pg10668.rdf, has no author information. I have other e-books as examples if you want them. Hopefully you will continue providing the legacy RDF until the RDFs following the current DCMI reccommendations have this information. Thanks, Dennis Sheil P.S. Having other information that the legacy RDF had, like number of downloads, would be nice as well. But listing who the author is is probably more important.

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Help with MBA homework
by Greg Newby 11 Mar '13

11 Mar '13

Some of you may know that I've been working on an MBA degree, via a distance ed program. (Yes, I already have a Ph.D. This is a mid-career action, for me.) I'm trying to get an overdue homework assignment completed before this weekend's in-person classes, and am asking for your help. It's an opportunity to send a little feedback to me. While Project Gutenberg has always been a volunteer activity, not my primary workplace (it's www.arsc.edu, if you are interested), it's a leadership role that I value and take seriously. The homework is for a leadership class I'm taking. Two questions: 1. How do you experience leadership, in Gregâs presence? (This question is about you, not about Greg. For example, in interaction, planning, meetings, thinking, tasks, deadlines, etc. when you and Greg are part of the team. This isnât about what you think about Greg, itâs about your own experience.) 2. Whatâs the single thing you think itâs most important for Greg to get better at? This question is about Greg, and is intended to be focused on the workplace. Please respond to me directly, unless you'd rather send to the list. I realize that #1 is a little hard to understand (it is for me, too!), but is intended to get at the emergent and co-invention aspect of leadership. Of course, it means electronic presence, not physical presence, for most folks on the list. -- Greg Dr. Gregory Newby, Director of the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center Univ of Alaska Fairbanks-909 Koyukuk Dr-PO Box 756020-Fairbanks-AK 99775-6020 e: gbnewby(a)alaska.edu v: 907-450-8663 f: 907-450-8603 w: people.arsc.edu/~newby Dr. Gregory B. Newby Chief Executive and Director Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation www.gutenberg.org A 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization with EIN 64-6221541 gbnewby(a)pglaf.org

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Kickstarter E-book Tool
by James Adcock 06 Mar '13

06 Mar '13

I'm not expressing an opinion on this Kickstarter funded project one way or the other, I just think it is an interesting development that the members this forum might want to take a look at. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1371597318/the-peoples-e-book?imm_mid=0a 2a41 <http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1371597318/the-peoples-e-book?imm_mid=0 a2a41&cmp=em-toc-newsletters-20130305-elist> &cmp=em-toc-newsletters-20130305-elist Oh, and they use ePUB as their format (well, duh!) They have a "glossy" sales video at: http://www.holartbooks.com/

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How does the gutenberg search actually work?
by Robert Cicconetti 05 Mar '13

05 Mar '13

How does one search for an exact title in the PG archive? I went to look for a book I worked on ("Brother Against Brother", 40541) and had to dig through 3 pages of fairy books to find it despite specifying the exact title. Quotes don't seem to work. Searching for the second title word "against" doesn't return any results at all... I know I can use google but I'd rather use the tools actually hooked into the PG catalog... Thanks! -Bob

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and this is what we have devolved to
by bowerbird 24 Feb '13

24 Feb '13

and this is what we have devolved to. "if you want something from project gutenberg, you have to ask marcello." it's a damn shame. -bowerbird

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Programmatically build a catalog database?
by Petite Abeille 20 Feb '13

20 Feb '13

Hello, (Hopefully this is the proper mailing list for such topic. Let me know otherwise.) I would like to build a local database of the Gutenberg catalog. The 'Gutenberg Feeds' page [1] lists the following resource to help achieve that programmatically: (1) All books in one huge file, in " superseded DCMI recommendation" format (2) A separate file for each book, in "current DCMI recommendation" format (3) A RSS Feed, in rss version="0.91" format So far: (1) sports all the Gutenberg assets, and is handy for the initial database build. But this looks a bit overkill for a day to day synchronization. (2) seems more appropriate than (1) for daily updates, but sports a different format: "current DCMI recommendation" vs. " superseded DCMI recommendation" (3) is a bit a blast from the past, but at least provides a list of new resources daily. Sadly there is no explicit link to (2), so one has to infer it from the <link> information. Questions: - Is there a version of (1) in the same format as (2)? Assuming the "current DCMI recommendation" is the canonical representation. That would save one from dealing with two different formats, or hacking (1) to get all the references to (2) and then hammer PG to get the individual files in format (2). - Why are (1) and (2) in different formats? - Is there an alternative feed that lists the rdf resource explicitly? An Atom feed perhaps? Apologies if these are FAQs, but I couldn't locate an unambiguous archive of this mailing list. Is GNAME a good proxy for the list postings? http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.culture.literature.e-books.gutenberg.volunteers Alternatively, is there a more straightforward way to build a local database of PG's assets? Perhaps I'm missing something :) Thanks in advance for any pointers. Cheers, PA. [1] http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Feeds

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jumpy mouse, crappy software
by bowerbird 15 Feb '13

15 Feb '13

my apologies for the double-post. been having trouble with a jumpy mouse. but why would an e-mail program send out two exact same e-mails within a few seconds? and why would listserve software go ahead and post two exact same messages _ever_, let alone within a few seconds of each other? my gawd we live in an age of crappy software. i mean, i can understand hardware going bad; physical things wear out; it's the way of the world. but crappy software? that's inexcusable, and on us. -bowerbird

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harts and flowers
by bowerbird 15 Feb '13

15 Feb '13

greg said: > what's cors? sorry, i just assumed you would know. also, have you heard of google? or wikipedia? top hit at google: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-origin_resource_sharing basically, this python program retrieves the e-text just fine: > #!/usr/bin/python > import urllib > print 'Content-type: text/html\n' > f=urllib.urlopen("http://snowy.arsc.alaska.edu/gutenberg/3/3/3/3333/3333- 8.txt") > s=f.read() > f.close() > print s but on the other hand, this (defanged) javascript will _not_ get the file: > !doctype html> > html> > head> > meta charset=utf-8 /> > title>CORS example > /title> > script type="text/javascript"> > > var client = new XMLHttpRequest(); > > client.onreadystatechange = function () { > if (this.readyState == 4 && this.status == 200) { > alert('' + this.responseText.substring(0,30)); > } > }; > > client.open('get', 'http://snowy.arsc.alaska.edu/gutenberg/3/3/3/3333/3333-8.txt'); > > client.send(); > /script> > /head> > body> > p id="hello">cors_snowy > /p> > /body> > /html> the error-log reports: > XMLHttpRequest cannot load > http://snowy.arsc.alaska.edu/gutenberg/3/3/3/3333/3333-8.txt. > Origin http://mywebsitenamehere.com is not allowed by Access-Control-Allow-Origin. this javascript _would_ work if it was being served from snowy, because then the javascript would be requesting a resource from the domain from which it came, which is always allowed. but if we serve it from another domain, the policy against cors (cross-domain origin resource sharing) disallows the request. however, you can have snowy _allow_ such cors requests. it has something to do with the headers that you send out. if you authorize these cors requests, then javascript will be able to get content from snowy, in the same way python can, from _any_ domain from which it might be served. for myself, i've worked around this problem. (i simply have javascript instruct my domain to have python go get the file, which it can do, and then i have python store it on my domain, and then -- since it's now on my domain -- javascript can get it.) but javascript coders shouldn't have to do this two-step shuffle. and they won't, if you have snowy authorize cors requests... -bowerbird

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