David A. Desrosiers wrote:
Wouldn't it be easier to just create a web page that listed the original names in the original directory structure, and then linked to the current book, wherever it is. It wouldn't require as much space as a full copy of all the books, and would probably be easier to keep in sync with any updated files.
Except when domains expire, sites go down, directory structures get moved around, and dozens of other situations where this is not the best approach, when you're relying on external sites to maintain their own content.
I would think it would be as a part of the Gutenberg site, not on a seperate site. That way, all links would be relative. Any broken links would be because of a change in the master directory structure, or an update to one of the books, which would need to be handled anyway (I'm assuming you still want the latest versions of the books). If you could add the original ebook number/directory to the metadata stored at Gutenberg, then you could periodically re-generate the web page(s) automatically with a simple perl script. Or maybe just use a CGI script to create it on-the-fly, so it is automatic. If you want it as a seperate site, write the links to point at whichever mirror you want. If, however, you want a static copy of the site up to when it switched to the new format, ignoring all new and updated books; then a seperate site would probably be preferable. Or just grab a copy of the 10K special DVD, as it has the original directory structure, and mount it in a web-accessable way.