Re: [gutvol-d] !@!Googleberg eBooks
Michael Hart writes:
eBooks often have multiple paper sources.
PG eBooks verifiably do not often have multiple paper sources. They sometimes, occasionally, have multiple paper sources. It is the exception that they have multiple paper sources, and even more the exception that they come from multiple paper editions. -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm
On Thu, 30 Dec 2004, D. Starner wrote:
Michael Hart writes:
eBooks often have multiple paper sources.
PG eBooks verifiably do not often have multiple paper sources. They sometimes, occasionally, have multiple paper sources. It is the exception that they have multiple paper sources, and even more the exception that they come from multiple paper editions.
The above might take more than one reading. . . . In addition, I should add the pretty much ALL the original PG eBooks came from multiple editions, simply to do better error checking. Michael
Michael Hart wrote:
In addition, I should add the pretty much ALL the original PG eBooks came from multiple editions, simply to do better error checking.
How many of the PG texts fall into the category "the original PG eBooks"? There is, of course, a difference between consulting other sources to clarify a few things with the text derived from the primary source, and simply kludging together a bunch of different editions to form a "new edition". An example of how things got out of whack with the "original PG texts" is Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein", where there are two quite different editions, and the version at PG is not even marked as to which edition it conforms with. It was a mistake to not include source information with the early PG texts (even if the work was a derivative.) Mistakes happen. Some of these mistakes can be corrected after-the-fact. And future works can do it right. No need to apologize for the past, Michael -- all projects make mistakes. The key is to learn from the mistakes and make the necessary changes in policies and procedures. (Am I correct in that the policy has changed, and all new PG texts are to include the source metadata?) Jon
On Fri, 31 Dec 2004, Jon Noring wrote:
Michael Hart wrote:
In addition, I should add the pretty much ALL the original PG eBooks came from multiple editions, simply to do better error checking.
How many of the PG texts fall into the category "the original PG eBooks"?
Who knows?
There is, of course, a difference between consulting other sources to clarify a few things with the text derived from the primary source, and simply kludging together a bunch of different editions to form a "new edition".
Of cource, this get's into a scholarly world I've tried to avoid all these years, as per the suggestions of my father, who was a great Shakespeare professor. We don't want to get into such scholarly arguments as how to punctuate "To be, or note to be." Obviously, any scholar will be able to figure out which editions we have used without much effort, and those who are not scholars won't care which editions we used because they don't care if it is: "To be or not to be." "To be, or not to be." "To be; or not to be." or "To be: or not to be." To them, that is not the question, and a discussion of that question would shuffle them off this mortal coil into the land of dreams.
An example of how things got out of whack with the "original PG texts" is Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein", where there are two quite different editions, and the version at PG is not even marked as to which edition it conforms with.
As for this example, the person who did it first may not have had any idea of the difference in the second. . .that's the purview of the person who does it second. . .they can expound on the differences in the second, and even attach such to the first file. As for identifying the eBooks with a particular paper edition, I think this should only be done in specific cases where the editions are known to be substantially different for reasons given in the newer editions. We did this with Darwin, Shakespeare, etc., but I don't see the need to do it in cases in which the differences are all likely to be in typographical errors, margination, pagination, and other publishing items, rather than in the source material. Michael
--- Michael Hart <hart@pglaf.org> wrote:
As for identifying the eBooks with a particular paper edition, I think this should only be done in specific cases where the editions are known to be substantially different for reasons given in the newer editions.
We did this with Darwin, Shakespeare, etc., but I don't see the need to do it in cases in which the differences are all likely to be in typographical errors, margination, pagination, and other publishing items, rather than in the source material.
Most of us at DP disagree with you on this, and happily the whitewashers are now keeping the edition information that we add to the files we produce, instead of removing it. An increasing number of DP-produced texts (and, since DP produces the overwhelming majority of content contributed to PG, an increasing number of PG's recent texts) make note of edition information and page numbers at the very least. Hopefully once we move to the next iteration of our proofreading process we will be able to keep more information -- including markup of words/phrases which are missing or otherwise hard to read in the original. Several of DP's content providers, myself included, intend over the new few years to find decent editions of works already in PG, but which are not in a state that we would find acceptable if we were proofreading it ourselves (this includes most of the first few thousand texts). Hopefully over time we can update all PG's content to a standard we're happy with. -- Jon Ingram __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 250MB free storage. Do more. Manage less. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250
On Mon, 3 Jan 2005, Jonathan Ingram wrote:
--- Michael Hart <hart@pglaf.org> wrote:
As for identifying the eBooks with a particular paper edition, I think this should only be done in specific cases where the editions are known to be substantially different for reasons given in the newer editions.
We did this with Darwin, Shakespeare, etc., but I don't see the need to do it in cases in which the differences are all likely to be in typographical errors, margination, pagination, and other publishing items, rather than in the source material.
Most of us at DP disagree with you on this, and happily the whitewashers are now keeping the edition information that we add to the files we produce, instead of removing it. An increasing number of DP-produced texts (and, since DP produces the overwhelming majority of content contributed to PG, an increasing number of PG's recent texts) make note of edition information and page numbers at the very least. Hopefully once we move to the next iteration of our proofreading process we will be able to keep more information -- including markup of words/phrases which are missing or otherwise hard to read in the original.
Several of DP's content providers, myself included, intend over the new few years to find decent editions of works already in PG, but which are not in a state that we would find acceptable if we were proofreading it ourselves (this includes most of the first few thousand texts). Hopefully over time we can update all PG's content to a standard we're happy with.
-- Jon Ingram
There is room for nearly everyone in Project Gutenberg. . . . DP is more than encouraged to keep working with this philosophy. This does not stop our encouragement of others who work on eBooks with other philosophies. We are currently hoping to increase our level of cooperation with Brewster Kahle and the Internet Archive [of which I was once the only surviving member when it was nearly extinct] & with John Mark Ockerbloom's Online Book Pages. Some of their books we can undoubtedly work on to increase the standards as mentioned above, but quite possibly it would be more polite to do it through their sites first or in some kind of simultanous release of new eBooks. . .and let them make the decision what relationship the new versions should have to the old. Michael
participants (4)
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D. Starner -
Jon Noring -
Jonathan Ingram -
Michael Hart