Collin wrote:
Although it would be nice if we could also cater for the academic world, that is by no means necessary. The academic world has access to our texts; if that for some reason is unsufficient, we need to determine whether that is through some fault of ours. I submit it isn't.
I believe that preserving and making the scans accessible is not only for the academic world, but for other users of the texts. For example, a modern publisher may wish to make a carbon particle on pressed dead tree version, and having the original scans assists with typography and layout and may resolves markup ambiguities (trust me, I've done this and needed to consult the original scans.) Someone may see what looks like an error, and by quick consulting with the scans, can verify if it was an error before submitting an error report (of course, those at the PG end making the corrections would love to have the scans readily available to verify the error report.) Some greedy IP attorney contemplating a lawsuit for his/her client claiming copyright infringement (e.g., the PG text is claimed to be derived from a modern edited edition) will take one look at the original scans and realize the text came from a true Public Domain source -- lawsuit does not proceed. And some casual readers will take an interest in the history of the PG Work they are reading and want to experience the look/feel of the original book, which they can easily do if the scans are available online. There's no doubt other "non-academic" uses of the page scans. There seems to be a limited, dichotomous view of the uses and users of structured digital texts: either casual reading by the average Joe, or hard-core academic use. Reality is more complex than this, and there's a whole rainbow of users and uses. Why PG wants to constrain itself to the most casual reader who will simply read the book from start to finish in his/her spare time, *intentionally* ignoring other types of users and uses, is mysterious -- especially when the effort to meet a greater range of users and uses is pretty minimal. It borders on the surreal.
Nevertheless, if we could somehow also make the page scans accessible, that could be handy for several reasons. I believe Charles Franks was working on such a system?
In the meanwhile, here's one system that could be tried until the more permanent system is developed: 1) Dial 415-561-6767 during working hours. 2) When Beatrice or Astrid answers, ask for Brewster Kahle. 3) Identify yourself as a DP person, and ask Brewster if he will archive and make available DP's page scans via a stable URL. 4) Await his answer, which may include an alternate suggestion. But I suspect it will be a positive reply. Brewster *loves* any and all high-quality public domain content. This may take a half hour. That doesn't seem too difficult to me. This is not rocket science. All you need is a directory/folder somewhere on the Internet to dump the scans (hopefully mirrored), and add a link in the right place(s) in the PG directory pointing to the scans. Of course have a couple people do periodic backups on DVD-ROM. More elaborate systems can be developed later and the scans moved to the new system. But get the darn scans archived and made available online, even if it is primitive to start out with. Jon Noring