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PT1B Weekly Project Gutenberg Newsletter
by Michael Hart 05 Apr '06

05 Apr '06

pt1b5.306 Weekly_April_05.txt **The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, April 05, 2006 PT1** *******eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since July 4, 1971******** PT1B Newsletter editors needed! Please email hart(a)pobox.com or gbnewby(a)pglaf.org Anyone who would care to get advance editions: please email hart(a)pobox.com ***Continuing Requests New Sites and Announcements General Catalog of Old Books and Authors http://www.kingkong.demon.co.uk/ngcoba/ngcoba.htm which now indexes 24,000 books available free online, including all PG(US) & PG(Aus)'s books, along with some basic date information about them and their authors where you can find more. For information please contact Philip Harper <webmaster AT kingkong.demon.co.uk> * We have been invited to peruse the various eBook collections of the Internet Archive for potential Project Gutenberg eBooks. http://www.archive.org Don't worry, many of the numbers listed are out of date, but you should get all the files when you pass through to the original sites. Click on "texts" to get started, feel free to pick up any of the eBooks you would like to work on. Many Thanks To Brewster Kahle and the Internet Archive! * Please visit and test our newest site: "PROJECT GUTENBERG EUROPE" http://pge.rastko.net [Project Gutenberg Europe] http://dp.rastko.net [Distributed Proofreaders Europe] * There is an experimental online reader available. Start from any bibliographic record page, e.g. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/4300 Basically this paginates the .txt file and remembers your last position in a cookie so you can later resume reading where you left off. Please test it. It should work with any book that has a text file where the encoding is known. * MACHINE TRANSLATION We are seeking as much information as possible on the various approaches to Machine Translation. Any brand names or contact information would be greatly appreciated. *** Please use our new site for downloading DVD and CD images, etc. http://www.gutenberg.org/cdproject and The PG bittorrent tracker is up and running. Aaron Cannon has placed the CD and DVD there if anyone wants to test. You can access it by visiting http://snowy.arsc.alaska.edu:6969 *** Please checkout the various Project Gutenberg FAQs, etc. at: http://www.gutenberg.org/about * We're building a team to read our eBooks into MP3 files for the visually impaired and other audio book users. Let us know if you'd like to join this group. More information at http://www.gutenberg.org/audio *** Project Gutenberg Needs DVD Burners So far we have sent out 15 million eBooks via snailmail!!! We currently have access to a dozen DVD burners. If you have a DVD burner and are interested in lending a hand, please email Aaron Cannon <cannona(a)fireantproductions.com> We can set you up with images, or snail you these DVDs for you to copy. You can either snail them directly to readers whose addresses we can send you, or you can do a stack of these and send the whole box back for reshipping. We can also reimburse you for supplies and postage if you wish. Please note that we can only use DVDs which are burnt in the dvd-r format, as we have had some compatibility issues with the dvd+r format. *** Project Gutenberg is seeking graphics we can use for our Web pages and publicity materials. If you have original graphics depicting Project Gutenberg themes, please contribute them! To see some of what we have now, please see: ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/images *** PROJECT GUTENBERG IS SEEKING LEGAL BEAGLES Project Gutenberg is seeking (volunteer) lawyers. We have regular need for intellectual property legal advice (both US and international) and other areas. Please email Project Gutenberg's CEO, Greg Newby <gbnewby AT pglaf.org> , if you can help. This is much more important than many of us realize! ***Progress Report, including Distributed Proofreaders In the first 03.00 months of this year, we produced 901 new eBooks. It took us from July 1971 to May 1997 to produce our first 901 eBooks! That's 13 WEEKS as Compared to ~26 Years!!! 53 New eBooks This Week 38 New eBooks Last Week 265 New eBooks This Month [Mar] 300 Average Per Month in 2006 266 Average Per Month in 2005 Counting 216 PGEu 248 Average Per Month in 2005 Not Counting PGEu 336 Average Per Month in 2004 355 Average Per Month in 2003 203 Average Per Month in 2002 103 Average Per Month in 2001 901 New eBooks in 2006 3186 New eBooks in 2005 Counting 216 PGeu > 2970 New eBooks in 2005 Not Counting PGEu 4049 New eBooks in 2004 4164 New eBooks in 2003 2441 New eBooks in 2002 1240 New eBooks in 2001 ==== 15,981 New eBooks Since Start Of 2001 That's Only 63.00 Months! ~254 books per month! 19,046 Total Project Gutenberg eBooks 15,946 eBooks This Week Last Year ==== 3,100 New eBooks In Last 12 Months [Incl. PGAu PGEu & PrePrints] 555 eBooks From Project Gutenberg of Australia [This does NOT include PGAu eBooks posted at the U.S. site: www.gutenberg.org ] 286 eBooks From Project Gutenberg of Europe 141 Entry From Project Gutenberg PrePrints You may also want to look at Project Runeberg [Scandinavian] http://runeberg.org * Project Gutenberg began operation on July 4, 1971 Project Runeberg began operation on December 13, 1992 Distributed Proofreaders began October 22, 2000 [Became an official PG-US site in 2002] Project Gutenberg of Australia began in August, 2001 The Project Gutenberg Consortia Center started in 1997] [Became an official PG-US site in 2003] Project Gutenberg of Europe started January 12, 2004 [Posted first books February 26, when we met in Brussels to address people at the European Union Parliament. Project Gutenberg PrePrints Started January 25, 2006 http://preprints.pglaf.org/ old http://preprints.readingroo.ms/ new * PROJECT GUTENBERG DISTRIBUTED PROOFREADERS UPDATE: Since starting production in October 2000, Distributed Proofreaders has contributed 8,265 Books to Project Gutenberg. 36 added this week. For more complete DP statistics, visit: http://www.pgdp.net/c/stats/stats_central.php * Check out our website at www.gutenberg.org, and see below to learn how you can get INSTANT access to our eBooks via FTP servers even before the new eBooks listed below appear in our catalog. eBooks are posted throughout the week. You can even get daily lists. Info on subscribing to daily, weekly, monthly Newsletters, listservs: http://www.gutenberg.org/howto/subscribe-howto or http://www.gutenberg.org/subs.shtml *** *Project Gutenberg Consortia Center Report I haven't had time to incorporate the new additions, as the Consortia Center recently doubled in size, for a current total of ~75,000 eBooks at http://gutenberg.cc Please note the addition of the Internet Archive marked with <<< below. PGCC's current eBook and eDocument Collections listings of 18 collections. . .with this week's listing as: Alex-Wire Tap Collection, 2,036 HTML eBook Files Black Mask Collection, 12,000 HTML eBook Files The Coradella Bookshelf Collection, 141 eBook Files DjVu Collection, 272 PDF and DJVU eBook Files eBooks@Adelaide Collection, 27,709 eBook Files Himalayan Academy, 3,400 HTML eBook Files Internet Archive ~30,000 eBook Files [In Progress] <<< Literal Systems Collection, 68 MP3 eBook Files Logos Group Collection, ~34,000 TXT eBook Files Poet's Corner Poetry Collection, 6,700 Poetry Files Project Gutenberg Collection, 15,035 eBook Files PGCC Chinese eBook Collection ~300 eBook files <<< Note Name Change Renaisscance Editions Collection, 561 HTML eBook Files Swami Center Collection, 78 HTML eBook Files Tony Kline Collection, 223 HTML eBook Files Widger Library, 2,600 HTML eBook Files CIA's Electronic Reading Room, 2,019 Reference Files =======Grand Total Files=========~137,142 Total Files===== Average Size of the Collections 8,067.18 Total Files These eBooks are catalogued as per the instructions of their donors: some are one file per book; some have a file for each chapter; and some even have a file for a single page or poem. . .or are overcounted for reasons I have not mentioned. . .each of which could cause the overcounting or duplication of numbers. If we presume 2 out of 3 of these files are overcounts, that leaves a unique book total of ~45,714 Unique eBooks If we presume 3 out of 4 of these files are overcounts, that leaves a unique book total of ~34,286 Unique eBooks [The new total of ~75,000 eBooks has eliminated many of the necessities for calculating unique eBooks this way] *** Please also note that over 25,000 eBooks are listed via The Online Books Page, of which over 5,700 are from PG. http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/ In addition: The Internet Public Library had a similar listing which is now in limbo. If anyone knows what is happening with the IPL, please let us know. Inquiries, made months ago, and again recently, have not turned up any current information. You can try a new IPL service at: http://www.ipl.org/div/subject/browse/hum60.60.00/ It would appear that The Internet Public Library ended its first incarnation with about 22,284 entries, which has now been surpassed by the Online Books Page. Still looking for more Internet Public Library info. *** Today Is Day #091 of 2006 This Completes Week #13 and Month #03.00 [364 days this year] 274 Days/39 Weeks To Go [We get 52 Wednesdays this year] 954 Books To Go To #20,000 [Our production year begins/ends 1st Wednesday of the month/year] 69 Weekly Average in 2006 61 Weekly Average in 2005 [Counting 216 PGEu] 57 Weekly Average in 2005 [Not Counting PGEu] 78 Weekly Average in 2004 79 Weekly Average in 2003 47 Weekly Average in 2002 24 Weekly Average in 2001 45 Only ~45 Numbers Left On Our Reserved Numbers List [Used to be well over 100] [This listing usually from the previous week] *** Permanent Requests For Assistance: DISTRIBUTED PROOFREADERS NEEDS CONTENT, PROOFERS AND SCANNER TYPES Please visit the site: http://www.pgdp.net for more information about how you can help a lot by simply proofreading just a few pages per day, or more. If you have a book that has been scanned, but not yet run through OCR (optical character recognition) or proofed, and you would like the Distributed Proofreaders to work on it, please email dphelp(a)pgdp.net and we will get things started. Also, DP is seeking public domain books not already in the Project Gutenberg collection. To see what is already online, visit http://ibiblio.org/gutenberg/GUTINDEX.ALL (a text file) listing Project Gutenberg eBooks and is available for downloading. Do you have Public Domain books you would like to see in the archive? Can they be destructively scanned? If so send them to the Distributed Proofreading Team! Please email dphelp(a)pgdp.net with your geographic location. You will be given the address of the nearest high-speed scanner. [Note that the high-speed scanner requires destruction of the book(s) which will not be returned.] We have high-speed scanners currently located in the east, west and central portions of the US to make shipping easier. Please make sure that any books you send are _not_ already in the archive and please check them against David's "In Progress" list at: http://www.dprice48.freeserve.co.uk/GutIP.html to ensure no one is currently working on them. It would also be helpful if you obtain copyright clearance before mailing the books, and send the 'OK' lines to dphelp(a)pgdp.net Do you like to work on an entire book at once but don't have the time or technology to do the scanning, OCR, and initial proofing yourself? Distributed Proofreaders has the perfect solution! Just send us email telling us that you are interested in post-processing and we will help find a project you would like to work on. Please contact us at: dphelp(a)pgdp.net if you would like to know more about the Distributed Proofreaders. ***Donation Information We Have Included Quick and Easy Ways to Donate. . .As Per Your Requests! We Are Looking For Volunteers To Add eBooks In More Languages, as well as in more formats, including music, artwork, movies, etc. *** QUICK WAYS TO MAKE A DONATION TO PROJECT GUTENBERG A. Send a check or money order to: Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation 809 North 1500 West Salt Lake City, UT 84116 USA B. Donate by credit card online: NetworkForGood: http://www.guidestar.org/partners/networkforgood/donate.jsp?ein=64-6221541 or PayPal to "donate(a)gutenberg.org": http://www.paypal.com /xclick/business=donate%40gutenberg.org&item_name=Donate+to+Gutenberg Project Gutenberg's success is due to the hard work of thousands of volunteers over more than 34 years. Your donations make it possible to support these volunteers, and pay our few employees to continue the creation of free electronic texts. We accept credit cards, checks and transfers from any country, in any currency. Donations are made to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (PGLAF). PGLAF is approved as a charitable 501(c)(3) organization by the US Internal Revenue Service, and has the Federal Employee Information Number (EIN) 64-6221541. For more information, including several other ways to donate, go to http://www.gutenberg.org/donation.html or email donate(a)gutenberg.org *Access To The Project Gutenberg Collections *Mirror Site Information Mirrors (copies) of the complete collection are available around the world. To find the sites nearest you, go to: http://www.gutenberg.org/MIRRORS.ALL *Instant Access To Our Latest eBooks http://www.gutenberg.org/find allows searching by title, author, language and subject. Use your Web browser or FTP program to visit our master download site (or a mirror) if you know the file's name you want. Try: http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs or ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/ and then navigate to the appropriate directory and look for the first five characters of the file's name. Note that updated eBooks usually go in their original directory (e.g., etext99, etext00, etc.) *** Statistical Review In the 13 weeks of this year, we have produced ~901 new eBooks. It took us from 07/71 to 05/96 to produce our FIRST 901 eBooks!!! That's 13 WEEKS as Compared to ~26 YEARS!!! FLASHBACK! Here's a sample of what books we were doing around eBook #901 Mon Year Title and Author [filename.ext] ### A "C" Following The eText # Indicates That This eText Is Under Copyright [Note: books without month and year entries are now in new catalog format] Jun 1997 Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe [#1][usherxxx.xxx] 932 Jun 1997 The Bab Ballads, by W. S. Gilbert [Gilbert #3] [2babbxxx.xxx] 931 Jun 1997 The Cook's Decameron, by Mrs. W. G. Water [ckdecxxx.xxx] 930 Jun 1997 The Cyberpunk Fakebook, by St. Jude & R.U. Sirius [fakebxxx.xxx] 929C May 1997 Alice In Wonderland, HTML Version of 30th Edition [alicexxh.xxx] 928 May 1997 The Lamplighter, by Charles Dickens [Dickens #29] [lmpltxxx.xxx] 927 May 1997 10,000 Dreams Interpreted, Gustavus Hindman Miller[drmntxxx.xxx] 926 May 1997 United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches [uspisxxx.xxx] 925 May 1997 To Be Read At Dusk, by Charles Dickens[Dickens#28][rddskxxx.xxx] 924 May 1997 Life of Francis Marion #3, by William Dobein James[jjmarxxx.xxx] 923 May 1997 Sunday Under Three Heads by Charles Dickens[CD#27][suthsxxx.xxx] 922 May 1997 De Profundis, by Oscar Wilde [Oscar Wilde #13] [dprofxxx.xxx] 921 May 1997 Ethics, by Benedict de Spinoza/Elwes Part 2 [#2] [2spnexxx.xxx] 920 May 1997 Ethics, by Benedict de Spinoza/Elwes Part 1 [#1] [1spnexxx.xxx] 919 May 1997 Sketches of Young Gentlemen, by Dickens [CD #26] [skygmxxx.xxx] 918 May 1997 Barnaby Rudge, 80's Riots, by Charles Dickens[#25][rudgexxx.xxx] 917 May 1997 Sketches of Young Couples, by Charles Dickens[#24][yngcpxxx.xxx] 916 May 1997 Library Work with Children, by Alice I. Hazeltine [lwwchxxx.xxx] 915 May 1997 The Uncommercial Traveller by Charles Dickens[#23][unctrxxx.xxx] 914 May 1997 A Hero of Our Time, by M. Y. Lermontov [aheroxxx.xxx] 913 May 1997 Mudfog and Other Sketches, by Charles Dickens[#22][mdfogxxx.xxx] 912 May 1997 Tales of the Fish Patrol, by Jack London[London#8][totfpxxx.xxx] 911 White Fang, by Jack London 910 The Adventures of Colonel Daniel Boone, by John Filson 909 A Treatise on Parents and Children, by George Bernard Shaw 908 May 1997 Flying Machine, by W.J. Jackman & Thos. H. Russell[flymcxxx.xxx] 907 May 1997 Abraham Lincoln, by James Russell Lowell[Lowell#2][1lncnxxx.xxx] 906 May 1997 Within the Law, by Marvin Dana from Bayard Veiller[wnlawxxx.xxx] 905 May 1997 Her Father's Daughter, by Gene Stratton-Porter[#7][hfdtrxxx.xxx] 904 May 1997 The White Company, by Arthur Conan Doyle[Doyle#12][whtcoxxx.xxx] 903 May 1997 The Happy Prince & Other Tales by Oscar Wilde[#12][hpaotxxx.xxx] 902 May 1997 The Jew of Malta, by Christopher Marlowe [CM #3] [jmltaxxx.xxx] 901 May 1997 Decline/Fall Of The Roman Empire, by Gibbon, Folio[dfre310f.xxx] 900 (NOTE: in proprietary Folio .nfo format; Vol. 3 only.) (See also: #890-895 for HTML format, #731-736 for plain text.) * Have We Given Away A Trillion Books/Dollars Yet? If our average eBook has reached just 1% of the world population of 6,507,879,958 that would be 19,046 x 65,078,800 = ~1.24 Trillion !!! With 19,046 eBooks online as of April 05, 2006 it now takes an average of ~1% of the world gaining a nominal value of ~$.81 from each book. [1% world population x #eBooks] 65,078,800 x 19,046 x $.81 = ~$1 Trillion [Google "world population" "popclock" to get the most current figures.] 6,507,879,958 65,078,800 * A Trillion Dollars Given Away At Just $.53 Value Per Book To 100 Million With 19,046 eBooks online as of April 05, 2006 it now takes an average of 100,000,000 readers gaining a nominal value of $0.53 from each book. This "cost" is down from about $.63 when we had 15,946 eBooks a year ago. Our Target Audience Is 1.5% Of The World Population = ~100,000,000 people. At 19,046 eBooks in 34 Years and 09.00 Months We Averaged 548 Per Year 45.7 Per Month 1.50 Per Day At 901 eBooks Done In The 090 Days Of 2006 We Averaged 10.0 Per Day 69 Per Week 300 Per Month If you are interested in the population of the world or of the U.S. you might want to know that these numbers, official as they appear, are just just estimates, and perhaps not as accurate as we hope. However, for those keeping track of how quickly the U.S. reaches a 300 million population level, and who noticed the passing of 298M, just two weeks ago. . .the U.S. is already 1/6 the way to 299M, so it will probably be 10 more weeks to 299M and 22 more to 300M. Recently the U.S. Congress, pertaining to district reapportionment, who gets to vote for which Congresspeople, decided that many of the districts were undercounted by 5%, perhaps then later deciding that all districts had been undercounted by 5% [can't recall details]. * The production statistics are calculated based on full weeks' production; each production-week starts/ends Wednesday noon, starts with the first Wednesday of January. January 4th was the first Wednesday of 2006, and thus ended PG's production year of 2005 and began the production year of 2006 at noon. This year there will be 52 Wednesdays, thus no extra week. * Odd Statistic Today at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 . . .the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06. * By the way, for those interested, the official U.S. population estimates just passed 298 million, though many say estimations of this nature leave out as much as 5% of the population. Still hoping for more statistical updates and additional entries. [This one is getting a little out of date, as the US population is obviously no longer 6% of the world. In fact, rounding to the nearest percent, the US will soon fall from 5% to 4%.] "If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following. There would be: 57 Asians 21 Europeans 14 from the Western Hemisphere, both North and South America 8 Africans 52 would be female 48 would be male 70 would be non-white 30 would be white 70 would be non-Christian 30 would be Christian 6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth and all 6 would be from the United States 80 would live in substandard housing 70 would be unable to read 50 would suffer from malnutrition 1 would be near death; 1 would be near birth 1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education 1 would own a computer [I think this is now much greater] 1 would be 79 years old or more. Of those born today, the life expectancy is only 63 years, but no country any longer issues copyrights that are sure to expire within that 63 year period. I would like to bring some of these figures more up to date, as obviously if only 1% of 6 billion people owned a computer then there would be only 60 million people in the world who owned a computer, yet we hear that 3/4 + of the United States households have computers, out of over 100 million households. Thus obviously that is over 1% of the world population, just in the United States. I just called our local reference librarian and got the number of US households from the 2004-5 U.S. Statistical Abstract at: 111,278,000 as per data from 2003 U.S Census Bureau reports. If we presume the saturation level of U.S. computer households is now around 6/7, or 86%, that is a total of 95.4 million, and that's counting just one computer per household, and not counting households with more than one, schools, businesses, etc. I also found some figures that might challenge the literacy rate given above, and would like some help researching these and other such figures, if anyone is interested. BTW, while I was doing this research, I came across a statistic that said only 10% of the world's population is 60+ years old. This means that basically 90% of the world's population would never benefit from Social Security, even if the wealthy nations offered it to them free of charge. Then I realized that the US population has the same kind of age disparity, in which the rich live so much longer than the poor, the whites live so much longer than the non-whites. Thus Social Security is paid by all, but is distributed more to the upper class whites, not just because they can receive more per year, but because they will live more years to receive Social Security. The average poor non-white may never receive a dime of Social Security, no matter how much they pay in. * *Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists For more information about the Project Gutenberg's mailing lists, including the Project Gutenberg Weekly and Monthly Newsletters: and the other Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists: The weekly is sent on Wednesdays, and the monthly is sent on the first Wednesday of the month. To subscribe to any (or to unsubscribe or adjust your subscription preferences), visit the Project Gutenberg mailing list server: http://lists.pglaf.org If you are having trouble with your subscription, please email the list's human administrators at: help(a)pglaf.org

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PT1A Weekly Project Gutenberg Newsletter
by Michael Hart 05 Apr '06

05 Apr '06

pt1a5.306 pt1b5.306 Weekly_April_05.txt **The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, April 05, 2006 PT1** *******eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since July 4, 1971******** * We Are Now Over 95% Of The Way To 20,000 eBooks!!! Including PG Australia, PG Europe, and PrePrints Our usual editor has been on the road and will be adding in the Newsletters as did not appear over the past month. Please forgive errors during reconstructs of the statistical periods that have been missed. Right now I have reconciled two ways of arriving at our grand total to 19,046, + or - 3. This includes an error correction changing the total for February 15 from 208 to 198, decreased the grand total by 10 eBooks. More checking is in order, but for the moment a fairly accurate total is in place. Editor's comments appear in [brackets]. Newsletter editors needed! Please email hart(a)pobox.com or gbnewby(a)pglaf.org Anyone who would care to get advance editions: please email hart(a)pobox.com * TABLE OF CONTENTS [Search for "*eBook" or "*Intro". . .to jump to that section, etc.] *eBook Milestones *Introduction *Hot Requests, New Sites and Announcements *Continuing Requests and Announcements *Progress Report *Distributed Proofreaders Collection Report *Project Gutenberg Consortia Center Report *Permanent Requests For Assistance: *Donation Information *Access To The Project Gutenberg Collections *Mirror Site Information *Instant Access To Our Latest eBooks *Have We Given Away A Trillion Yet? *Flashback *Weekly eBook update: This is now in PT2 of the Weekly Newsletter Also collected in the Monthly Newsletter Corrections in separate section 3 New This Week From PG Australia [Australian, Canadian Copyright Etc.] 0 New This Week From PGEu [European Copyrights, Life + 50 and 70] 0 New This Week From PG PrePrints 50 New This Week To Public Domain eBooks Under US Copyright 53 New This Week [Including PG Australia, PG Europe and PrePrints] [I'm sure there are a few bugs in the new accounting] *Headline News from Edupage, etc. *Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists *** *eBook Milestones* ~19,046 eBooks As Of Today!!! 18,622 at www.gutenberg.org[+50] 555 Australian eBooks [+3] [included in above line] 286 Gutenberg Europe [+0] 141 PG PrePrint Site [+0] ~19,049 Grand Total of all four sites >>> We Are ~95% of the Way to 20,000!!! <<< ***548 eBooks Averaged Per Year Since July 4, 1971*** 15,981 New eBooks Since The Start Of 2001 That's ~254 eBooks per Month for ~63.00 Months We Have Produced 901 eBooks in 2006 954 to go to 20,000!!! 36 New eBooks From Distributed Proofreaders 8,265 total from Distributed Proofreaders Since October, 2000 [Details in PT1B] [Currently over 36,000 DP volunteers] We Averaged ~339 eBooks Per Month In 2004 We Averaged ~248 eBooks Per Month In 2005 [Including PG Australia] We Are Averaging ~300 eBooks Per Month In 2006 [Including PGAu, PGEu and PrePrints] [This change is due to the opening of Project Gutenberg sites other than the original one at www.gutenberg.org] [Now including totals from Australia, Europe and PrePrints] [Apologies, it will take a while to integrate everything not all statistics may be totally equalized yet] [PGEu Statistics Are Counted Monthly Not Weekly] [Daily PGEu stats at http://dp.rastko.net/default.php] [Daily DP stats at http://www.pgdp.net] BTW, we just started a new "PrePrints" site at PG, so if you come across eBooks that aren't ready for primetime, but that should be saved for upgrading, we have a place to put them. http://preprints.readingroo.ms/ new site All Four Sites Combined Are Averaging 69 eBooks Per Week In 2006 53 This Week It took ~32 years, from 1971 to 2003 to do our 1st 10,000 eBooks It took ~32 months, from 2003 to 2006 for our last 10,000 eBooks It took ~10 years from 1993 to 2003 to grow from 100 eBooks to 10,100 It took ~2.50 years from Oct. 2003 to Mar. 2006 from 10,000 to 19,000 * ***Introduction [The Newsletter is now being sent in two sections, so you can directly go to the portions you find most interesting: 1. Founder's Comments, News, Notes & Queries, and 2. Weekly eBook Update Listing. Note bene that PT1 is now being sent as PT1A and PT1B. [Since we are between Newsletter editors, these 2 parts may undergo a few changes while we are finding a new Newsletter editor. Email us: hart(a)pobox.com and gbnewby(a)pglaf.org if you would like to volunteer.] This is Michael Hart's "Founder's Comments" section of the Newsletter FREE INTERNET REFERENCE SITE LivingInternet.com provides a 700-odd page reference about the Internet "to provide living context and perspective to this most technological of human inventions", and has received input from many people that helped build the Internet. It currently receives about 3 thousand visitors a day, many from educational institutions. Now in its 7th year of operation. http://www.livinginternet.com/ TEXT TO SPEECH Dolphin Producer is a new software package which will convert a text document into a fully synchronized text and audio DTB at the push of a single button. The DTB can then be played back using Dolphin's EaseReader software player - which is included in Dolphin Producer. The DTB can also be played back on any other DAISY DTB software or hardware player, as well as any MP3 player - The choice is yours. http://www.dolphinuk.co.uk or http://www.dolphinusa.com *News From Other Sources Sony eReader Delayed Sony has announced a delay from Spring to mid-Summer for the rollout of its new eBook reading device. In addition, it has been announced that Sony and Borders are to be the exclusive sellers of this $300-$400 product. * Print On Demand [POD] Case Reversed In Favor of Big Business Amazon and Ingram, two of the giants in the bookselling world, won a reversal of their conviction of patent infringement case that evolved after they refused to licence POD technology from patent holder Harvey Ross, the founder of On Demand. In an interesting sidelight, the overturned royalty payment of 13% of sales is more than most authors' royalties. See: On Demand Machine Corp v Ingram Industries Inc Case numbers: 05-1074, 05-1075 and 05-1100 U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. *Headline News from Edupage [PG Editor's Comments In Brackets] IT SPENDING EXPECTED TO RISE Results of a survey by Accenture indicate a likely increase in IT spending over the next three years. The annual survey, which questions IT managers at 300 large U.S. businesses, found that 60 percent expect to increase spending, while just 13 percent anticipate that IT spending will drop. Thirty-two percent of respondents said IT spending at their companies was insufficient. The average forecast is for IT spending to rise by 5.5 percent. Factors that are expected to spur new or increased spending include new business initiatives, upgrading legacy systems, and adopting new technologies. Other factors mentioned were integration efforts following a merger or acquisition, regulatory compliance, and security. ZDNet, 31 March 2006 http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-6056393.html JUSTICE DEPARTMENT CASTS A WIDE NET FOR INFORMATION Subpoenas obtained through the Freedom of Information Act indicate that the U.S. Justice Department is seeking Internet usage data from at least 35 companies in its efforts to defend the 1996 Child Online Protection Act (COPA) against court challenges. One of the subpoenas sparked a legal showdown between the government and Google, which challenged the request for millions of records of Internet searches. In that case, the government significantly scaled back its request, which the judge ruled was allowable. Other companies that received similar subpoenas are Comcast, EarthLink, AT&T, Cox Communications, Verizon Communications, Symantec, and other makers of computer security products. The Supreme Court has ruled twice that COPA is likely unconstitutional, and the government will go to trial in October to defend it. David McGuire, spokesman for the Center for Democracy and Technology, expressed concerns echoed by other critics that the government is seeking large amounts of information to defend a questionable law. Associated Press, 30 March 2006 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060331/ap_on_hi_te/internet_blocking ANOTHER PATENT THREATENS CAMPUS TECHNOLOGY Another company has contacted a number of colleges and universities about a technology patent they might be infringing, this time for systems that transfer money across the Internet to campus cards. in 1998, JSA Technologies applied for a patent, which was granted in 2005, that covers such transfers. Many institutions use campus cards for student expenses such as books, food in snack bars, or campus fees. Jon Gear, vice president of JSA, said the company has no intention of forcing institutions to discontinue their funds-transfer systems. The company, he said, is simply enforcing a patent that protects its intellectual property. Gear said JSA contacted a number of schools, though he declined to say how many or to name them, and will negotiate licensing fees, which he said would be "negligible." Lowell Adkins, executive director of the National Association of Campus Card Users, said his organization is working to clarify the issue. "It's still really unclear what the scope of the patent is," he said. "We need to understand how they're going to exercise their rights." Chronicle of Higher Education, 28 March 2006 (sub. req'd) http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/03/2006032802n.htm INITIATIVE AIMS TO HELP FIND TRUSTWORTHY INFORMATION ONLINE A new Web site being developed by researchers at Syracuse University and the University of Washington (UW) will provide users with tools and tips for separating good online information from the vast amounts of unreliable material. R. David Lankes, associate professor of information studies at Syracuse, and Michael Eisenberg, professor in the Information School at UW, are codirectors of the Credibility Commons, which is funded by a $250,000 grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Lankes said that many users assess the credibility of online information based on what a site looks like or whether it tells users what they want to hear. The Credibility Commons will gather computer programs--written by others and by the organizers of the new site--that can help users find credible information on the Web. The site will also solicit feedback from users for how best to locate reliable, accurate information. The tools developed by the Credibility Commons will be available as open source applications, which users may download and modify provided they share those changes with the site. Chronicle of Higher Education, 29 March 2006 (sub. req'd) http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/03/2006032901t.htm BT CHARGING FOR HIGH BANDWIDTH USAGE U.K. Internet service provider BT has sent letters to 3,200 subscribers letting them know that their usage exceeds the 40GB per month download limit to which they agreed in the terms of their service. The letters inform customers that they must either pay a surcharge for the extra usage or their service will be disconnected. The ISP does not have an automatic shutoff for users who exceed the limit, and officials from BT said they are willing to tolerate occasional violations. The users contacted, however, are regularly downloading far more than the limit, with some routinely downloading 200GB every month. Such a volume of downloads corresponds to approximately 50,000 songs. A spokesperson from BT said it would be fair to call these users "broadband hogs" and noted, "You would have to be downloading pretty much all day, every day, to manage that level of downloading." BT sent similar letters to 1,800 individuals in October, and while some users did agree to pay for their usage, most were cut off from BT. ZDNet, 27 March 2006 http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1035_22-6054223.html PROFESSOR FORBIDS LAPTOPS, STUDENTS GRUMBLE June Entman, a law professor at the University of Memphis, has banned laptops from her classes for first-year law students, telling them they must take notes with pen and paper. "The computers interfere with making eye contact," said Entman. "You've got this picket fence between you and the students." She said she wants her students to spend less time taking down everything she says and spend time "thinking and analyzing" instead. Students responded by circulating a petition to have the decision overturned and by submitting a complaint to the American Bar Association, which has since dismissed the complaint. Student Jennifer Bellott said she worried that Entman's decision would spawn a "snowball effect," prompting other professors to do the same. Cory Winsett, another student at the university, said, "If we continue without laptops, I'm out of here. I'm gone; I won't be able to keep up." James Smoot, dean of the law school, said that Entman's decision will stand but that the school will review technology policies. USA Today, 21 March 2006 http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-03-21-professor-laptop-ban_x.htm To SUBSCRIBE to Edupage, send a message to LISTSERV(a)LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU and in the body of the message type: SUBSCRIBE Edupage YourFirstName YourLastName or To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your settings, or access the Edupage archive, visit http://www.educause.edu/Edupage/639 *HEADLINE NEWS AVOIDED BY MOST OF THE MAJOR U.S. MEDIA [As requested adding sources, etc., when possible. Remember, the subject is not the article's subject, the subject is the manipulation of the world news.] *DOUBLESPEAK OF THE WEEK Congress is passing "Ironclad Ceilings On Spending" with great public fanfare and media coverage as the National Debt approaches $10 Trillion dollars: but at the same time they have passed two amendments to virtually unpass these "Ironclad Ceiling" bills. One of these bills exempts Congress from the limit, which is about half of national spending, such as a continuing payment for the Iraq war, etc., with the second bill exempting entitlement programs which is the other half. *PREDICTIONS OF THE WEEK >From a reply to the announcement of specific brands of terabyte boxes at Fry's this past week for $649. Other places have the same products from the same brand[s] at $699. Of course, if you are willing to simply buy 4 @ 250G drives for $99 each, and put them in a less sophisticated box than previously mentioned, these new terebytes can be added for ~$450 rather than the $649-$699 mentioned. Add another $50 each time you want to add a serious feature. However you want to count it, though, if you have been considering buying a terabyte, the time is obviously coming when there will quite many wider and wider ranges of selections, and you will likely see terabytes sold at Best Buy, Circuit City, etc., for under $500 by next year's holidays. If you want a top of the line terabyte box you can get one at about $1500 that includes rows of SCSI and GigE connectors, dual power supplies, etc. *ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK This week's statistics come to you courtesy of the big flap in the United States Congress in response to President Bush making a felony issue out of being an illegal alien. As previously mentioned in reference to the U.S. population reaching 300 million shortly, the actual population is very undercounted, as witnessed by the 5% push by Congresspeople to get more representation based on such undercounts. In addition, Congress is now citing numbers over 11 million for undocumented workers in the U.S., including who knows a total of how many children they have had while in the U.S., which makes those children legal citizens, under previously enforces U.S. citizenship laws. This is also bringing attention to labor unions. Today unions represent under 1/12 of United States workers, but rates approaching 1/2 exist in certain jobs, such as an assortment of local government workers. Where do you think AFSME gets all that money to advertize with? AFSME = Association of Federal, State and Municipal Employees The highest union rates across jobs are among men with less than 9th grade educations. It's not always the United States, the same cycle happens with Canadian workers, as below. In 1998 the average full time union worker received $19/hr, as compared to $15.64 for full time non-union workers. This is just over a 20% advantange for union workers. However, the different among part time workers is greater-- $16.55/hr for unions, $9.71 for non-union workers. 70%+ In addition, unionized workers usually get more hours/week, receiving weekly paychecks of $325.64 versus $161.92, which is just over DOUBLE the paychecks of non-union workers. * Odd Statistic Today at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 . . .the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06. * By the way, for those interested, the official U.S. population estimates just passed 298 million, though many say estimations of this nature leave out as much as 5% of the population. Still hoping for more statistical updates and additional entries. [This one is getting a little out of date, as the US population is obviously no longer 6% of the world. In fact, rounding to the nearest percent, the US will soon fall from 5% to 4%.] "If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following. There would be: 57 Asians 21 Europeans 14 from the Western Hemisphere, both North and South America 8 Africans 52 would be female 48 would be male 70 would be non-white 30 would be white 70 would be non-Christian 30 would be Christian 6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth and all 6 would be from the United States 80 would live in substandard housing 70 would be unable to read 50 would suffer from malnutrition 1 would be near death; 1 would be near birth 1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education 1 would own a computer [I think this is now much greater] 1 would be 79 years old or more. Of those born today, the life expectancy is only 63 years, but no country any longer issues copyrights that are sure to expire within that 63 year period. I would like to bring some of these figures more up to date, as obviously if only 1% of 6 billion people owned a computer then there would be only 60 million people in the world who owned a computer, yet we hear that 3/4 + of the United States households have computers, out of over 100 million households. Thus obviously that is over 1% of the world population, just in the United States. I just called our local reference librarian and got the number of US households from the 2004-5 U.S. Statistical Abstract at: 111,278,000 as per data from 2003 U.S Census Bureau reports. If we presume the saturation level of U.S. computer households is now around 6/7, or 86%, that is a total of 95.4 million, and that's counting just one computer per household, and not counting households with more than one, schools, businesses, etc. I also found some figures that might challenge the literacy rate given above, and would like some help researching these and other such figures, if anyone is interested. BTW, while I was doing this research, I came across a statistic that said only 10% of the world's population is 60+ years old. This means that basically 90% of the world's population would never benefit from Social Security, even if the wealthy nations offered it to them free of charge. Then I realized that the US population has the same kind of age disparity, in which the rich live so much longer than the poor, the whites live so much longer than the non-whites. Thus Social Security is paid by all, but is distributed more to the upper class whites, not just because they can receive more per year, but because they will live more years to receive Social Security. The average poor non-white may never receive a dime of Social Security, no matter how much they pay in. * *Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists For more information about the Project Gutenberg's mailing lists, including the Project Gutenberg Weekly and Monthly Newsletters: and the other Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists: The weekly is sent on Wednesdays, and the monthly is sent on the first Wednesday of the month. To subscribe to any (or to unsubscribe or adjust your subscription preferences), visit the Project Gutenberg mailing list server: http://lists.pglaf.org If you are having trouble with your subscription, please email the list's human administrators at: help(a)pglaf.org

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