- gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

Re: [gutvol-d] Plucker server on gutenberg.org
by Joshua Hutchinson 16 Nov '05

16 Nov '05

How hard would it be to have two options on the download. One with just text and one with text and images? Josh ----- Original Message ----- From: "Marcello Perathoner" <marcello(a)perathoner.de> To: "Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion" <gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org> Subject: Re: [gutvol-d] Plucker server on gutenberg.org Date: Mon, 07 Nov 2005 19:11:44 +0100 > > Matthew McClintock wrote: > > > Whoops, sorry - I meant "are there plans to have the plucker versions > > incorporate the images from the HTML documents?". > > We easily could ... its just the flip of a switch on the plucker distiller. > > The problem is, once we start including images, people with old hardware will > complain about the size of the files. Also we don't have any records about > which ebooks contain essential images and which only decorative images. > > > > > -- 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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Re: [gutvol-d] Fwd: [CHMINF-L] Copyrights as a textbook scam?
by Gutenberg9443＠aol.com 13 Nov '05

13 Nov '05

In a message dated 11/9/2005 5:59:16 P.M. Mountain Standard Time, mkengel(a)gmail.com writes: Economists view copyright monopolies as inefficient because they create a large gap between the price of a textbook and the marginal cost - the cost to the publisher of creating an additional copy. This cost can effectively be zero, when the option exists to transfer material over the Internet. This gap between price and marginal cost is the exact same issue that leads economists to view trade barriers as inefficient." This is neither the best nor the most important issue regarding trade barriers, though it is an important one. This is particularly true in things like freshman and sophomore English textbooks. They have no need at all of graphics (If I-as-teacher, which thank Heaven I no longer am, feel my students will be starving for information if they don't see a color photo of a painting of Sir Walter Raleigh, I can always take a picture of Sir Walter Raleigh to class and pass it around); the textbooks may be extremely expensive because of the cost of using copyrighted material, which in turn used copyrighted material. Big fleas have little fleas Upon their backs to bite 'em. Little fleas have lesser fleas And so on ad infinitum. In the past month I have had several (don't remember how many, as many of the requests were by telephone) people asking permission to put Gutenberg material in their self-published textbooks, which they prepare for their students and sell at cost, instead of buying "one size fits all" textbooks, and how much it would cost to use. I grow weary of explaining the same thing over and over and over. Almost all of it is eighteenth and nineteenth century stuff, and you'd think that anybody who is sufficiently well educated to teach in college would know that eighteenth and nineteenth century stuff is automatically out of copyright, even if the notes, bib, and other impedimenta aren't. I see no reason at all for ANY textbooks. It is perfectly possible, right now, for everything from K through Ph.D. to be put on ONE halfway decent notebook computer. Thus when something changes, such as Pluto now has three moons, the writer or editor of the textbook can go on and make the change at once and the student could immediately download the insert for something like 49 cents, which is the least that FictionWise will let me sell something for--I tried to sell an essay I wrote 45 years ago for 29 cents. Yes, it is necessary for the writer, editor, and publisher all to make a living, but that can be done without charging 200 dollars for a textbook which was probably outdated before it hit the printing press. It has been pointed out to me that students lose textbooks. It is not necessary to lose textbooks. The second time the student has to fork over $700 dollars for a new notebook, even if he can go to the company he bought the etext from and get a new copy for free, the number of lost computers per capita will become a lot smaller than it is now. One tends to get a little careful, using such options as putting their computer bag between their ankles instead of on an open shelf when they are eating lunch. I'm still rewriting, editing, and selling my books, as I now have copyright reversion on all but two nonfiction books which I don't have the time and energy to research and rewrite anyway. I'm reselling them for somewhere between 2.99 and 4.99. I noticed last week that the book I'll have for sale at FictionWise next Monday (not tmrw) sold, in hardcover format, for almost $40. Gee whiz. How odd that the publisher couldn't possible sell it for less. How odd that it wound up remaindered--though there were under 100 copies unsold at the time. I value my imagination highly, but I'm not vain enough to think that people should rush to pay $40 for something which came entirely out of my brain. (No, the writer has absolutely no say in this, any more than s/he does with the cover. My cover artist at St. Martin's Press, with which I am no longer affiliated, kept putting saguaro cactuses in covers of books set in Fort Worth, Texas. Uh, there are no saguaro cactuses living in Fort Worth, unless somebody brought them there and is keeping them in some kind of screen room.) And I am able to pay my writers MORE money per sale of a $3.99 ebook than those writers would have gotten per hardback book. Day before yesterday I bought two novels by Laurie King from eBookWise. I paid slightly more for them than I would have paid for a paperback, but certainly nowhere near what I would have paid in hardback. Just after I entered grad school I was lucky enough to find a complete set of "Great Books of the Western World" for $20 at a garage sale. Those enabled me to avoid buying at least two thousand dollars worth of textbooks. So now my "Great Books" have writing all over them, and so what? One of the reasons I still have my ragged, ratty-looking Shakespeare that I bought as a college freshman is that although I have "complete Shakespeare" books that are cleaner and newer, I still want all those notes I wrote in that one over the course of many years. If notebook computers had been available then, I could have had the book up on half the screen and a word processing program up on the other half of the screen, and I type a lot faster and more legibly than I handwrite. I-as-student can always go to the library if I will absolutely die if I don't have the impedimenta; professors usually put books they're teaching from in a special area which will allow the books to be checked out no longer than 4 hours at a time. I could address this topic for hours, and have done so despite my guests' eyes glazing over, but I definitely consider textbooks as they are now sold to be a monstrous rip-off, especially when such a high percentage of students now are supporting themselves. They can't leave the university bookstore at the beginning of each semester without paying out two months' worth of rent if they are living in the cheapest place they can find. Okay, now I will go down off my soapbox and go back to what I was doing, which I think was reading email. Anne

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paypay link on gutenberg.org page seems broke
by David Meo 13 Nov '05

13 Nov '05

Hello , I just downloaded a few books to put on my new PDA, and decided to again donate something. But the PayPal link seems broke. An error message is displayed at the initial Paypal screen to please enter an amount greater than zero. I am letting you know because since I couldn't find another email address on the www.gutenberg.org <http://www.gutenberg.org/> web site. Could you please let the web master know about the problem. Thanks ,... Dave

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Article on how the IA/OCA actually scans
by Jim Tinsley 12 Nov '05

12 Nov '05

(via Slashdot) http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB113111987803688478-VNpw62xi_JA4avE8c… How the Internet Archive is actually scanning the books: a view from one of the people actually pushing the pedals (literally) on the machines. jim

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Fwd: [CHMINF-L] Copyrights as a textbook scam?
by Michael Engel 10 Nov '05

10 Nov '05

This might interest some on the gutvol list ? ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Robert Michaelson <rmichael(a)northwestern.edu> Date: Nov 10, 2005 4:41 AM Subject: [CHMINF-L] GENERAL: Copyrights as a textbook scam? To: CHMINF-L(a)listserv.indiana.edu Please excuse duplicate posting. Another economist discusses publishers' monopolies -- this time as applied to textbooks, but it seems to me that one could make a parallel argument about journals, particularly on the Internet. Are Copyrights a Textbook Scam? Alternatives to Financing Textbook Production in the 21st Century" by Dean Baker, Center for Economic and Policy Research: <http://www.cepr.net/publications/textbook_2005_09.pdf> "Economists view copyright monopolies as inefficient because they create a large gap between the price of a textbook and the marginal cost - the cost to the publisher of creating an additional copy. This cost can effectively be zero, when the option exists to transfer material over the Internet. This gap between price and marginal cost is the exact same issue that leads economists to view trade barriers as inefficient." "Of course there is a rationale for copyright monopolies: the monopoly allows the publisher to recoup the expenses of producing the book, the fees paid to the author(s), editors, illustrators, and other upfront costs... However, copyrights are only one way to cover these costs and not necessarily the best way." Bob Michaelson Northwestern University Library Evanston, Illinois 60208 USA rmichael(a)northwestern.edu CHMINF-L Archives (also to join or leave CHMINF-L, etc.) http://listserv.indiana.edu/archives/chminf-l.html Search the CHMINF-L archives at: https://listserv.indiana.edu/cgi-bin/wa-iub.exe?S1=chminf-l

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"illuminated" drop-caps
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 08 Nov '05

08 Nov '05

i was fuming at those illuminated drop-caps as soon as they started doing so, but felt that it'd be useless for _me_ to complain about it... it breaks the text to use them. please fix it... -bowerbird

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Re: Project Gutenberg AJAX search engine tool
by Greg Newby 08 Nov '05

08 Nov '05

On Sat, Sep 03, 2005 at 11:32:55AM -0700, joseph callas wrote: > Hello, > > I have completed the test version of the search engine and have the > production version here: > > http://goatstone.com/pg_search/ > > thanks again for your great resource. > > Joseph Collas > goatstone Dear Joseph: I'm perpetually in a time warp it seems, and did not have a chance to respond until now. I'm taking the liberty of cc'ing our discussion mailing list, in case they can provide feedback. I thought your demonstraion was fascinating, and will be of interest. (Folks on -d: please cc' Joseph on anything he might want to hear about: joseph callas <goatstone(a)gmail.com>) -- Greg

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Microsoft to put 100,000 books online
by kreeder＠mailsnare.net 08 Nov '05

08 Nov '05

According to the Associated Press, Microsoft has reached an agreement with "the British Library" (is there only one?) to scan and put online 100,000 books, which will be available free online "next year". The article suggests that the project will be limited to books in the public domain. Microsoft is said to be investing 2.5 million dollars in the project. A full story can be found here: http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8DLQH2G0.htm?campaign_id=apn_…

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Plucker server on gutenberg.org
by Marcello Perathoner 07 Nov '05

07 Nov '05

The first experimental PG plucker server is up. The goal is to convert ebooks to the plucker format on-the-fly. Plucker: see: www.plkr.org Find the no. of the ebook you want and then call this url: http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/plucker/17000.plucker (replace 17000 with the ebook no.) Building the file may take some time when the servers are busy. But the second download should come much faster, out of the cache. If something awful happens, like if no suitable source file was found, you should get an error page. The source file will be HTML if available, else TXT. TXT files are parsed by a custom plucker parser, which works well enough on modern files but gets worse when applied to older ones. Get the "plucker 1.8 viewer package" for PalmOS from http://www.plkr.org/dl You don't need the plucker 'distiller' to view books you get from the PG plucker server. But with the distiller you can also plucker any other web site you like. For PocketPC go here: http://vade-mecum.sourceforge.net/ -- Marcello Perathoner webmaster(a)gutenberg.org

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re: [gutvol-d] Plucker server on gutenberg.org
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 06 Nov '05

06 Nov '05

sounds great! -bowerbird

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