- gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

Re: [gutvol-d] future of ebooks + books to take to bed
by Gutenberg9443＠aol.com 16 Nov '04

16 Nov '04

In a message dated 11/15/2004 7:02:02 AM Mountain Standard Time, joshua(a)hutchinson.net writes: Second, I wouldn't make fun of Star Trek fans. They tend to be higher educated and have read more things like Shakespeare than the average Joe (I don't have the link to source of the information, but I remember reading it somewhere). I'm going to ramble about for a while here, but I am getting back to the topic eventually. So please put up with me. My experience as a writing teacher, middle school through university, has been that the more fantasy the student reads, the better the student's vocabulary is. Fantasy is the only popular genre, so far as I know, that revels in vocabulary. Also, a person who plays Dungeons and Dragons is likely to know more about comparative mythology than anybody else out of graduate school. A good player of D&D reads extensively. I don't play Dungeons and Dragons, but my son does. He's schizophrenic, and his mind flies off in all directions. When he was a child, if I told him to clean his room, he would sit down on the floor and cry, because he couldn't break "clean your room" into its component tasks. But if I told him, "Put your books away, put your clothes away, put your toys away, make your bed, and vacuum your floor," he could do all that. When he first got into D&D, he spent a lot of time at the kitchen table drawing dungeons on graph paper. I kept him supplied with graph paper. Later, as I happened to be driving from Fort Worth to Dallas, he spent the entire trip cross-examining me on comparative mythology. I got most of the questions right. At that time he was in middle school and I had an MA. Twenty-five years of D&D later, most of them as an advanced Dungeon-master, he is director of parking lot security at a major stock-car race. By the time he got through examining the overall situation, deploying his personnel optimally, and keeping an eye on all his personnel and everything that happened in his jurisdiction, the race track director said that he (my son) had done the best job of policing the parking lot that he (race track director) had ever seen, and my son was instantly signed to bring his crew back the next year. Playing a much-maligned game, and reading much-maligned "junk" genre fiction, taught him sequence, analysis, and synthesis. I don't call any books except pornography junk. Even if a kid is only reading Sweet Valley High, at least the kid is READING. My opinion is that there is one main reason why many kids nowadays don't have the respect for the written word that kids several generations ago had: they don't have time to read. Our youngest daughter, about halfway through seventh grade, began begging to be homeschooled. My husband and I vetoed it, until the end of the year. At that time I gave her a few formal and informal tests and was absolutely appalled. She had learned nothing, despite making decent grades. We immediately granted her request, and we had to back her up to third-grade math and have her work forward. One day the weather was thoroughly icky, and she was in her room. She came to me and said, "Mom, a funny thing just happened." When I asked what it was, she said, "Well, I thought I had read just a few pages, but then I found that I was at the end of the book, and then I looked at the clock and I had been reading an hour." I said, "Congratulations, my child. You have learned to read." Of course she indignantly pointed out that she had been reading since the first grade. I said, "No, you haven't been reading. You've been sounding out words, and that was taking so much of your mental energy that you didn't have time to concentrate on what the words meant." How many kids, today, have an hour--or half an hour--or even fifteen minutes--of uninterrupted reading time? This problem can't be solved by the schools; the answer has to come in the homes. The one-eyed monster in the living room has an off switch; it even has an electrical cord that can be unplugged. Once I got so sick of my children arguing about it that I put the television in the attic for three months. They still argued, but now it was over which one of them got to play the piano first. Their misbehaviors got more interesting; I remember once telling Liz that she absolutely could not read the Bible any more until she had finished washing the dishes, and then thinking how happy other parents would be to have the problems I had. Those three months broke the addiction, and they watched TV after that only rarely and for something in particular that they were following--not sitcoms and soap operas. Computers are dandy, but a kid who is addicted to the computer must be required to spend at least half an hour a day reading a book of his or her choice ON THE COMPUTER. This way, the child learns that reading and computers aren't irreconcilable. As a volunteer online tutor, I have many students asking me where they can find such-and-such a book online. If it is public domain, I look it up--preferably on PG--and give the student a link to it. But often the student is asking for a book that is still in copyright, and I have to explain that one has t o go to a REAL library for that book. So this is what I mean when I say that when these kids are adults, about ten years from now, they are going to demand computerized books and they are going to get computerized books. Somebody last week mentioned Luddites; I am aware that many people my age (61) are Luddites about computers, but my state--Utah--has the highest percentage of "wired" households of any state in the Union. I do not think that a person who refuses to think about reading computerized books is a Luddite, but I do think that person is not well informed. I think that if that person would try out a Rocket for a week, preferably a week which included several days in bed for flu or recovery from surgery or something like that, that person would never go back to paper books for anything that was available electronically. But notice that I said "think." I could be wrong. I live in a rather small house--definitely too small to be running three businesses from. But given technology that exists RIGHT NOW, everything in the Library of Congress would fit into my house. Everything in the Salt Lake City Library and the Salt Lake County Library and the University of Utah libraries would fit into one bookcase in my office. There are books that, for very good reason, I own in both silicon and dead tree formats. But when my grandchildren are the age I am now, they will think that having all those dead tree books around is a stupid, space-wasting, fire hazard. So what I'm getting at is this: We can't possibly guess the future of ebooks. It's bigger than any of us think it is. Even the best science fiction writers never guessed how we would use computers, and we're still on the edge of that, also. It is really absurd to worry about errors made ten years, even five years, ago. Resolve not to make those mistakes again, but go forward, not back. Don't try to figure out who made the mistakes. That doesn't matter. Go forward, not back. The first telegraph message, on 24 May, 1844, said, "What hath God wrought?" Now, 160 years later, we gripe if television from Mars or Ganymede is a little fuzzy. I don't want to offend the atheists on this ML, but--God is still wrighting. We're part of that process. I won't live to see PG's 60th birthday, but some of you will. What, by then, will God have wrought, using our hands to do the work? But we'll never get it done if we spend all our time squabbling about what somebody should have done five or ten or fifteen years ago. Go forward, not back. My husband has instructed me not to get into any more flame wars because they upset me too much. So I'm going back into watching status, where I spend most of my time anyway. But, good people--and you are good people, all of you, because you wouldn't be pouring your heart and mind and time into this work if you weren't--stop looking behind you. The action is in front of you. Anne

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Re: [gutvol-d] Perfection
by Joshua Hutchinson 15 Nov '04

15 Nov '04

----- Original Message ----- From: Michael Hart <hart(a)pglaf.org> > > Question: > > How much harder is it to make an eBook set up to answer all > these scholarly and reference questions, than just to read? > > Michael > As far as the ones produced at DP... neglible. A few seconds to a few minutes time to include the information. (We basically already have it, just needs some formatting applied). Josh

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RE: [gutvol-d] future of ebooks + Scholarly use of PG + books totaketo bed
by Joshua Hutchinson 15 Nov '04

15 Nov '04

----- Original Message ----- From: "Her Serene Highness" <mbuch(a)mcsp.com> > > After all, you can't understand Shakespeare unless you read him in the > original Klingon. > > >>You can- if you're educated. Plenty of people understand Shakespeare. > Even high school students. People in Italy can read Shakespeare. Tiny > children can also- they could at the beginning of this century. My > badly-educated, at-risk high school students were able to understand > Shakespeare. If you don't, that says more about you than it does about > early modern English. And some of us can even parse Beowulf- with a > two-language version (which is how it's usually printed) the average person > can read an amazing amount of it in the original, or at least grasp it. > Maybe if you stopped reading Star Trk novels as literature, you'd realize > you read Shakespeare's language pretty much every day. His turns of phrase > are used all the time, and can be understood by people of all economic level > who have the desire to read an learn- even people who cannot affor $99 > ebooks to read Stephen King novels (not theat Stephen King is bad, but > there's more to reading than that).<< > First of all, Anne's comment was an off-the-cuff, tongue-in-cheek ... JOKE. Second, I wouldn't make fun of Star Trek fans. They tend to be higher educated and have read more things like Shakespeare than the average Joe (I don't have the link to source of the information, but I remember reading it somewhere). Third, your comments are really making you sound like an academic elitist. And I don't think you are or mean to be. Josh

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RE: [gutvol-d] Perfection
by Joshua Hutchinson 15 Nov '04

15 Nov '04

----- Original Message ----- From: "Her Serene Highness" <mbuch(a)mcsp.com> > > You don't have to believe me. Just find this quote. It's from The Koran. > "And thou takest vengeance on us only because we have believed on the signs > of our Lord when they came to us. Lord! pour out constancy upon us, and > cause us to die Muslims." It's in Sura VII. I have no doubt that you'll > find it- but it will take you quite a while to do so with no page numbers > and no way to go to each section separately. Not trying to be a smart-### here, but I tried your example. Time to open PG's website and search for Koran... ~25 seconds. Clicked on the Koran link, it downloaded quickly (thanks to a T1 here at work! ;) ~ 5 seconds. Control-F, paste in the first four words from your quote ("And thou takest vengeance), hit return ... first hit was the right one. 5 seconds at most. Total time from reading your paragraph to reading the passage from the Koran... 35 seconds. This is why electronic citation is so much BETTER. I someone points me to the file they cited from, a quick search will turn it up in seconds and opposed to finding the book, flipping to the page and skimming down through the text to find the quote material. And just so you know I did find the material in the Koran... I will surely cut off your hands and feet on opposite sides; then will I have you all crucified." They said, "Verily, to our Lord do we return; And thou takest vengeance on us only because we have believed on the signs of our Lord when they came to us. Lord! pour out constancy upon us, and cause us to die Muslims." Then said the chiefs of Pharaoh's people-"Wilt thou let Moses and his people go to spread disorders in our land, and desert thee and thy gods?" He said, "We will cause their male children to be slain and preserve their females alive: and verily we shall be masters over them." **** Ah, the oneness of religion! Christianity is built upon the foundation of Judaism ... Islam references both ... Yet religious reasons are giving for so much fighting. Josh

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Re: [gutvol-d] I'm sorry, I don't get it [Was: Perfection, PG Audience, etc.]
by Gutenberg9443＠aol.com 14 Nov '04

14 Nov '04

In a message dated 11/14/2004 11:52:40 AM Mountain Standard Time, holden.mcgroin(a)dsl.pipex.com writes: >>I'm just curious here but which journal would be willing >>to publish the >>full text of all references cited? Certainly none of those >>I've had >>papers in. None. That's why Michael's suggestion--store your references on a personal Website and put a URL in your bib--is better than this suggestion. Anne

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RE: [gutvol-d] future of ebooks + Scholarly use of PG + books totaketo bed
by D. Starner 14 Nov '04

14 Nov '04

"Her Serene Highness" writes: > Are you honestly saying that every book you will ever want > to read is on a computer? Why are you so violent about this? Why can't you understand that no one here is planning on torching the libraries, that ebooks and paper books aren't exclusive? > You must think I'm mad to love a physical book that > I will pass down to some relative of mine, Why do you assume that? > My computer was not on the list. And neither were most of your books. Your books are, of course, naturally inferior. Under even moderate enviromental conditions, they will fade away in a hundred years, a few hundred years at the best. Even in libraries they yellow and fade. They don't have the right smell, they don't feel right in the hand. That's why they will never supersede stone tablets. >It's available in modern English in book form. It's available in modern English in ebook form, too. The original text is also available in ebook form, both from Project Gutenberg. >> You can't understand Shakespeare until you read him in the original Klingon. >You can- if you're educated. Bah! The poorly translated English versions are but mere shadows of the originals in the Warrior's Tongue! Your human biased education merely blinds you to that fact! > Maybe if you stopped reading Star Trk novels as literature, you'd > realize you read Shakespeare's language pretty much every day. Perhaps if you started reading Star Trek novels, you would realize that reading doesn't have to be serious, and that our dreams aren't circumscribed by the concepts of the Elizabetheans and Victorians, that there is a wonderful future ahead of us, but it may require letting go of our death-grip on the things of the past. We may have a home on the moon or Mars sometime in the near future, but if we do, the library will be composed of ebooks, not paper books. In a world where every pound costs hundreds or thousands of dollars to move, ebooks are a godsend. -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm

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RE: [gutvol-d] Perfection
by D. Starner 14 Nov '04

14 Nov '04

"Her Serene Highness" <mbuch(a)mcsp.com> writes: > David Starner writes: > > What is he supposed to do, give a page reference to one of a dozen editions > > that might be very hard for the teacher to find? With etexts, you know > > that your recipent has access to the same edition you have. And as someone > > else pointed out, if you quote the sentence, the context can be found in > > seconds. > > **Why not? It's done all the time. Students and scholars have cited rare > books that are impossible to find before- I remember citing a rare book that > contained the concordat between the Vatican and Germany for a grad class > years ago, and information on the Black Star line of Marcus Garvey while > still in high school. Why did my professors accept my citations? Because > they could be tracked down. One of the methods of mathematical proof is proof by uncheckable citation. "This lemma is proved in the January 1822 volume of the Bohemian Mathematical Journal, pages 12-43." If the volume is in some library half-way across the country, nobody is going to take the time to check a cite in some students paper. If the teacher is never going to check the cite, what's the point? And if he's going to find the one copy in the nation and order it via ILL, what's so hard about searching through an online document? > But other than as a work of literature, i'd have problems > using it- like if I were comparing 19th century versions of Arabic texts, > because I'm not even sure it was written in the 19th century.** Anyone born in 1980 or later would know quite quickly, just like I do. It was translated in 1861 and reprinted in 1971 as part of the Everyman's Library, and has been frequently reprinted. It has a second edition, in 1871; assuming the Everyman's library's text was taken from the second edition, you can quickly check to see whether the PG edition is the first edition or the second edition. Google is your friend. So is the LoC catalogs, but watch out because they frequently have authors split under two headings, one of the marked as being from the old catalog. > **How? Easy. You look at other books about Koranic translations and see if > they refer to this one- and guess what? You can't do that online. Which > means you have to go to a library anyway. Online isn't BETTER. It's > different. Or I could do a search online and find out that Rodwell's translation is considered inferior by some because he wasn't a Muslim, but is probably one of the better public-domain ones. I also find "All the prominent translations of the Quran have each been the product of a single individual, so there is no translation which truly reflects the collective and opposing thoughts of a range of scholars. Such a large-scale collaborative effort would most likely be required to establish any one translation as most authoritative. Since this has not yet happened, there is no translation of the Qur'an as widely accepted (for example) as the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible. "As a result, individual English-speaking Muslims tend to have their own personal favourites. Indeed, those who read more than one translation often develop a fondness for different aspects of each. For example, the renowned scholar Annemarie Schimmel, author of dozens of books on Islam and formerly professor of Islam at Harvard University, favoured the translation of Arthur John Arberry for beauty of expression, and that of Marmaduke Pickthall for literal rendering of Arabic phrases." which are from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translation_of_the_Qur%27an>, and which convienantly have links to the authors so I can find their credentials. > By the way- in a library, I can tell if a book is a reprint. But what you can't tell is if it was reprinted, if all you have is the original. A quick search through the LoC's online catalogs should give you a pretty reasonable guess as to whether it was reprinted or not. > I could print it > out and share it with my friends- after all, most people don't read whole > books online. Control F is only useful if I'm in front of a machine. If I > want to read a Tom Swift book to my kids at a chapter a night, I'm not going > to do it from a laptop or park little Johnny's bed next to my desk. No, but you aren't doing scholarly work with Tom Swift. And again, your generation doesn't read whole books online, but mine does. > when I can print it out and have it > paginated, My printer _always_ paginates documents. If you're dealing with an old dot-matrix, you have to paginate it manually, but the paper is usually prescored for seperation. (-: But seriously, I can't imagine why you'd want that. The original pages were designed for the original machine, and the change in fonts and typesetting, which is unavoidable, will change where the page breaks would naturally fall even if you strive to keep everything the same as the original. It would be much better to put page numbers in the margins and let the physical breaks fall where they may. Accept that page numbers have become free of the physical form of the book. I think that we should retain source information, but you don't understand and accept the power of the tools at your fingertips. Much of the context about a book can be resolved in a google search or a search of the appropriate library catalog online. Stop and think before you hit that print button; ink is expensive, you know. A lot of things don't need printing out. Try emailing things to people, and letting them print it out if they want to. Ebooks don't need to dance to be useful. Even well-stocked libraries don't have many of the books we do, and even if you have to send for the hardcopy, having the book at hand is useful. It vastly simplifies searching and especially concordence building. Online books are better in many ways, not just different. -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm

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Re: Did this get slipped in without discussion? (was Re: [gutvol-d] Cleaning up messes)
by Greg Newby 14 Nov '04

14 Nov '04

(I redirected to gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org. Who sent this to Lyris @ listserv.unc.edu? That server is broken, the list there is defunct. I have been trying to delete the list there for months, but the software is perpetually non-responsive) This will probably be my last response to Jon. Clearly, some people can't take "yes, go for it!" as an answer. Jon wants to tell other people how they should do things, but is unwilling to make things happen himself. He insists there is a "right" way of doing things, and belittles the efforts of those who don't fit his notions. My view is that Jon will not be content until all the people working on PG are ousted, in favor of his preferred organization, governance, fundraising, production rules, and collection guidelines. This is not going to happen anytime soon, and other than being critical of the status quo, Jon has contributed nothing towards making it happen anyway. Instead, Jon has repeatedly been offered the ability -- with support and encouragement -- to create the organization or content he so strongly desires. Some people can't take "yes" for an answer, or are not content with the ability to control their own domain without controlling others. A few more comments: On Thu, Nov 11, 2004 at 01:35:04PM -0700, Jon Noring wrote: > Greg Newby wrote: > > > I have only a few brief things to say about this. Jon, and other > > interested persons, are very much welcome to start their own projects, > > sub-projects or related activities to pursue this agenda, or other > > agendas. We (the messy ones) will provide encouragement and support. > > > > We have pretty extensive wording on this philosophy and encouragement > > in the "FAQ" items Michael and I wrote, online at > > > > http://gutenberg.org/about > > I urge all the PG people reading this to read Michael Hart's statement > of the principles of PG governance given in > > http://www.gutenberg.org/about/faq1 > > (Notice the date of it from June, and edited in October, after much of > the discussion about the organization and governance of PG. As far as > I know, this was silently put up without any announcement to the > group.) > > Was this statement of principles run by the actual owners of PG, the > thousands and thousands of volunteers who have donated their untold > hours of time to further Project Gutenberg? Did they get a chance to > discuss and approve of this statement? There were announcements with requests for feedback in about 6 *months* of weekly & monthly newsletters, with advance copies going back to around May. There was a posting to the front page of gutenberg.org, for months and months. There were at least a few mentions on gutvol-d. > Or is PG a "benevolent" dictatorship, where the volunteers-at-large > are not given any real say? You know better. > So much for democracy and decentralization, where "less is more." > (Orwell?) I see PG primarily as a meritocracy. Always, the pattern is to enable, empower, support and encourage those who want to do things to further the mission - or related activities. The people who do the most are the most active in shaping policy and future direction. Your insinuation that there are central power brokers who are insulated from the many people who are contributing is inconsistent with how things -- *all* things -- get done. > Who owns Project Gutenberg, anyway? Until that is clarified, nothing > can be resolved. You know the answer to this, too. You are simply trying to stir up discontent and create an "us vs. them" atmosphere. For those who, unlike Jon, don't know: visit http://gutenberg.org/fundraising for a quick rundown. An even quicker rundown: - Michael created Project Gutenberg, and owns the trademarked name, "Project Gutenberg" - PGLAF was formed in 2001 as the legal entity that operates Project Gutenberg - PGLAF has four board members, including me. I'm also the CEO. - I am a volunteer for PGLAF, and have worked with PG since 1992. The extent to which Michael, or I, or PGLAF, has sway over the daily activities of PG is limited. Set direction: yes. Control some of the technologies: to some extent. Get people to do stuff: only as they agree & desire. The ability of Jon or anyone else to take leadership and make things happen is just as strong as mine, or anyone's. Flinging mud because so few people subscribe to your view of reality is certainly not going to create progress towards your goals. > > Finally and most importantly, I utterly reject Jon's accusation that > > the lack of source matter or other metadata (or formatting, or > > anything else) makes the Project Gutenberg content of today or > > yesterday "corrupt." > > Let me clarify (again) below, what I wrote in a separate message. You > may still reject it, but PG's past carelessness and looseness leads to > legitimate questions about the accuracy and acceptance of the pre-DP- > era texts. "Corrupt" may be a strong word (and inaccurate), but not > placing "textual integrity" as #1 (including the perception of textual > integrity) is simply wrong. Note that perceptions are just as real as > reality itself. > > I take it PG's official position, then, is that PG will continue > with the policy of not requiring the source information to be included > in the metadata associated with each PG text? If this policy is to Yes. There is very little that is required, and as the FAQs mentioned above say quite clearly, we intend to keep it that way. > continue, why? If this policy been changed, then that calls into > question those texts where the pedigree is unknown. Question them all you want. Or don't even read them. But if you want to fix them, get started, rather than talking about careless, inaccuracy, lack of textual integrity, etc. As I mentioned, I'm tired of saying "yes" to you, and then having you argue about it. You have all the freedom you could possibly want to do things your way. What you cannot have is control of the past or present of PG. > I'm pretty certain that the vast, overwhelming majority of PG > volunteers who do take a position either way on this issue want the > full source information to be included in the metadata. > > As I said in the followup clarification: > > "A clarification... > > "Note that certainly any third-party can attempt to verify the > authenticity of a PG text even if the source information is not known > and no scans are given. However, not giving the source work (and not > making the scans immediately available), the third-party has a much > more difficult time in verifying the text. You are envisioning frustrated scholars and others who care about such things. Those are not our target audience, and never have been. While it's likely that some such scholars have "turned off" to PG, I can tell you that there are close to zero requests for such pedigree information that come in on a monthly basis. In short, you are trying to portray your pet peeve as a universal truth, desired by all. First, again (and as stated in literally *every* PG header, for decades): we do not try to keep our books in accord with any particular print edition. We are not catering to scholars who care about particular dead trees sources. Second, I do not accept your idea that this is a major impediment to use and acceptance by scholars, or anyone else. This is pure speculation on your part (regardless of whether it's backed up by a few personal stories), and counter-indicated by the uses and support requests we hear about. Finally, and perhaps most importantly from your point of view, I'm still saying "yes," not "no." I will be perfectly happy, overjoyed even, to have better tracking of source information, richer markup, and available scans for more of our eBooks. I expect that part of our cataloging discussion outcomes will be better facilities for doing this -- as will the outcomes of the PGTEI markup. But as I keep saying, (a) the lack of pedigree, scans, etc. are not going to stop us from adding submitted eBooks; (b) people who want to retroactively work on existing eBooks are welcome to do so. > "PG, by identifying the source document, *and* providing scans, adds a > lot of credibility (and greater usability) of the digitized texts it > produces and distributes. This action effectively says: "We are proud > of our work, and stand behind it fully. We even provide you, the user, > with full information about its pedigree, and the original page scans > are available for your use and easy verification." Once again, you are belittling the efforts of everyone who created these works. Did you ever hear the story about flies, honey & vinegar? > "Of course, it also aids in copyright clearance having the original > scans and full source information available. Scholars and researchers, > too, will now find the collection to be sufficiently authoritative for > their purposes, where now it is NOT. If PG wishes to become Big League, > it has to begin playing Big League ball." Your view of Big League ball for eBooks seems to include the following: - stating that all the work of past & current volunteers is crap. Or was it just "corrupt," or "careless?" Or "loose" and "messy?" - dictating that all new content from all sources must include pedigree information and scans, and may only remain true to the printed dead trees edition - only accept complete markup allowing for re-creation of the original printed word In my final words, I again encourage you to start your own effort to make such things happen. Use the PG mailing lists & newsletter to solicit like-minded participants. Work with DP to spin off your own projects there, or your own independent DP-like effort. Play in the big league. Cater to scholars. Include only the works you think pass muster. Build your own constituency. Meanwhile, you might want to review the documents in http://gutenberg.org/about and see again why your efforts to belittle past efforts or pursue your agenda to restrict current activities are rejected. -- Greg

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Scholarly use of PG
by David Newman 14 Nov '04

14 Nov '04

As a credentialed conflict avoider, I've been loathe to stick my head into this fray. Indeed, this battle about meeting the needs of academia appears to be waged at times with an ideological fervor to rival that of the recent US election. It seems to me that the fervency with which people approach this issue has made it difficult in some cases for the arguments to follow a path towards resolution. It is perhaps also complicated by the wide assortment of changes being proposed to remedy the perceived problems. Some arguments for change suggest that PG should direct its energies towards making its library suitable for scholars by including more information in the files, particularly pagination and provenance, presumably packaged with XML. I have no problem with including such information. However, I don't think it should be required of all texts, nor do I believe that it really solves the scholarship issue. Including page scans _would_, to the degree that a solution is possible, and requires approximately 0% extra work for most of our valiant volunteers. And, PG has made it clear that this is acceptable, and has already done so for some projects. I feel that Marcello gave the most persuasive and concise summary of the situation, and I didn't notice any overt disagreement. Marcello Perathoner wrote: >The best value for Academia (and the least work for us) would be just to >include the page scans. Any transcription you make will fall short of >the requirements of some scholar. I think we should use our time for >producing more books for a general audience instead than producing >Academia-certified editions of them. HSH's comments justify such an approach. Her Serene Highness wrote: >I need to know EXACTLY when the original >was published, who published it, and where, since there are variant texts >out there. Even a single word change that might have occurred in the >copying process could change the meaning of a vital sentence. Of course, there is a simple, if unsatisfactory, answer to all these questions for PG texts: they were published by PG, on the PG website, and each file states when it was published. Each work we publish is the "PG variant" of that text. As an academic, I find it dishonest and unhelpful for a scholar to cite a physical volume when the volume they consulted is an electronic edition. It is virtually impossible to guarantee that "even a single word change" was not introduced in the transcription process. Even with DP's careful processes, I would not wager that most of our books enter PG completely error free (or correction free, for that matter.) Page scans allow for an additional layer of safety for any scholar concerned about the adherence to a given print edition, though a certain level of trust in the provider is still required. Thus, while I hope that PG's holdings are as accurate as possible, it would also be my hope that scholars using PG would cite PG. Evidently this is not always the case. Michael Hart wrote: >I've also heard that many of those who complain, actually use our >eBooks in secret, and ONLY want the provenance so they can steal >them without giving credit where credit is due. This suggests to me two things. 1) We can include page scans and information about provenance, _when available_, with the files so that academics can feel confident in the reliability of those PG holdings. Not so that the original sources can be dishonestly cited, but to provide the necessary data for certain scholars to confidently cite PG's edition. We can point to this in our documentation to enhance our scholarly credibility. 2) We can prominently suggest an appropriate style of citation of works in PG's holdings. (I've seen this done with other digital collections.) Perhaps if the citation style also takes into account the original source, some otherwise reluctant scholars would be appeased. Is this something we can all agree on? -- David Newman www.davidnewman.info

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I'm sorry, I don't get it [Was: Perfection, PG Audience, etc.]
by John Hagerson 14 Nov '04

14 Nov '04

#define SOMEWHAT_PEEVED 1 I'm a student (or a researcher). I'm writing a paper. I'm planning to cite an e-book. Why don't I just DOWNLOAD the eBook to my computer and append it to my paper? Then, it doesn't make any difference what happens to the eBook left in the ether. TEACHER, HERE IS THE COPY *I* USED. I'm just a lowly volunteer slogging my way through DP producing books. If Jon Noring wants to go off and create "Distributed Definitive Editions," I don't see anything stopping him. I, personally, am not at all interested in that effort, but I'm just a lowly peasant (an *anybody* doing proofreading). What am I missing? #define SOMEWHAT_PEEVED 0 John

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