Subject: Re: Project Googleberg
From: [email-masked]
To: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 18:35:27 EST

I have examined what seems to be the preliminary "Googleprint" catalog. It  
consists of books scanned and posted by other people including us. At least 
half  of them that I looked at are available only as page scans, and I have to 
want a  book an awful lot to put page scans together just for my own use. They 
use a LOT  of our books; in fact, everything they have that they are aware we 
have shows us  as the best or only site to go and get the book.
 
What worries me now is that I'm not sure that possible funders will realize  
the difference between what we're doing and what these guys are doing. No 
matter  how you slice it, a collection of page scans, though useful for some 
purposes  (and please don't let us start arguing about whether we should preserve 
page  numbers), is a book only by a pretty frantic leap of the imagination.
 
When JESUS THE CHRIST goes online it is going to have page numbers and the  
footnotes are going to be numbered as in the book. This is totally essential in 
 view of the fact that the book constantly refers readers back or forward by 
page  number and footnote letter. Doing anything else would make the book 
pretty  unusable.

BUT--if I happened to be postprocessing something by Thornton W.  Burgess, 
which I read in childhood only because my grandmother wouldn't let me  read what 
I wanted to read unless I read at least one book by Thornton W.  Burgess 
before reading the book I wanted to read, and then another one  afterwards if I 
had another book I wanted to read--I say, if I happened to be  postprocessing 
that, which I would not do unless there was no other book  available in the 
universe for me, I certainly wouldn't include the page  numbers.
 
I don't know how I got into this, except the Googleberg (I like that name)  
also has Thornton W. Burgess. (Excuse me while I barf. Imagine sound effects.  
Now I am back.)
 
Their thing might be useful if they ever figure out how to use it. But so  
far I don't see what they're going to do that we aren't doing a whole lot  
better, and would be doing a whole lot faster as well if we had their  funding.
 
By the way, does ANYBODY know where we can get a public domain copy of  Ibn 
Batuta? I've had no luck finding one online. I even asked the king of  Saudi 
Arabia for a copy, but His Majesty didn't answer. The few  snippets I've seen 
are fascinating. He left his home to go on a haj, and then  kept going, spending 
29 years travelling and writing fascinating notes of where  he went, namely 
everywhere you could get to without going to Arctica,  Antarctica, or the 
Americas.
 
Anne