I've been working, slowly, on some new CD/DVD images (ISO files) for our use. As many people know, we've given away many thousands of free CDs and DVDs, and added the ISO images (along with BitTorrent, RAR and other formats) to the main PG collection. You can peruse the images I've been working on here: http://snowy.arsc.alaska.edu/gbn/pgimages actual ISOs are at: ftp://snowy.arsc.alaska.edu/pub/gbn/isos These are not completed....I'll be adding stuff like GUTINDEX.ALL, donate-howto.txt, and a README.TXT You can see the nifty tool for creating such images here: http://snowy.arsc.alaska.edu/pgiso/ Here are the main two CD/DVD collections for you to consider: 1) "As many titles as possible." In the tool, I specified these numbers: 1-2199,2225-3500,3525-11774,11800-20000 with "no copyrighted", "txt/zip" format, and any language. The result is all of the zipped eBooks in plain text format, minus our copies of the Human Genome. (No, we don't go up to #20000 in the main PG collection, which the tool uses...only 18683 as of right now. I'm just using a high enough number that I don't need to look up the actual number.) This should be similar to our eBook #11800, the PG 2003 "10k special." For that, we tried to add as many as possible, resulting in ~9300 titles including .txt and .html (also Genome), all zipped. Surprisingly, we can fit *all* 17454 of our non-copyrighted text/zip titles with space to spare in a DVD: about 3.5GB. In case you're wondering (I was!), including as many HTML titles as possible (including their images) in html/zip, then filling in the rest with text/zip, yields about 3.25 DVDs (14.5GB). 2) "Best of Redux." Our Best Of CD image was made by human selection (on this list!), resulting in just under 600 titles. Many are HTML. Since #11220, we've added lots of great stuff. So, what would go on today's "Best Of"? I went ahead and recreated the image in the new tool, and also made one emphasizing HTML (since some titles have been moved to HTML that were previously just text). I've uploaded (to the /pgimages URL) the list of the "Best Of" eBook numbers, as well as the list of "best of" public domain that Amazon did last year (remember that?). GOALS: - confirm viability/suitability of the "allzipnohgp" collection (#1 above); make any suggestions. This is basically the densest way of getting people all of the PG collection, fitting easily on a single DVD. (Yes, I plan on filling it up with some of our nice HTML & multimedia. Your ideas are solicited.) - consider ways forward for a new "Best of" - either CD or DVD. The only thing I feel strongly about is showcasing some of our beautiful HTML titles with nice images. Yes to all the classics, and yes to plain text or HTML...but consider "best of" in terms of PG's best work, not just the classic titles. If anyone would really like to run with these idea and create some new images, go for it! The snowy tool makes it easy to share your own collections, and we have many places to distribute ISOs you create. I do think it's time to create some new "primary" giveaway images, though, and appreciate any ideas you might have. -- Greg