GWeekly_May_18.txt **The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, May 18, 2005 PT1** *******eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since July 4, 1971****** Newsletter editors needed! Please email hart@pobox.com or gbnewby@pglaf.org Anyone who would care to get advance editions: please email hart@pobox.com Please note that we are still in the process of correcting our statistical program data. Last week we subtracted a few that we thought had been in a duplicate count situation, but either that correction didn't stick or some new similar problem has occured. As always, the total count should be the consideration of some attention as to possibly being off by a few eBooks. Please note that PT2 of this Newsletter is currently in flux, as we shift from to an automated PT2 sender. The situation with Monthly Newsletters is in flux to an even greater degree. Our apologies as we make changes. * HOT REQUESTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS Wanted: People who are involved in conversations on Slashdot, Salon, etc. * Firefox : A commentary from Bill Hammack's public radio program You can listen to this commentary at http://www.engineerguy.com For years Microsoft's Internet Explorer has dominated the web browser market - by some estimates capturing almost 100 percent. But their share has dropped to 89% and continues to decline. An upstart browser called Firefox recently clocked its 50 millionth download. More is at stake, though, then a surfing the web. The Firefox browser represents a new way to write software: No giant corporation, just thousands of volunteers around the globe linked via the internet. They are part of an informal revolution called the Open Source movement. By Open Source I mean that their computer code is available to anyone to modify as they wish. This is a stark contrast to Microsoft, for example, that keeps it Windows operating system under tight wraps: Only Microsoft employees know how it does its magic. It would seem that this new model doesn't build strong software, but there are thousands of programmers who will work on the code. They are hyper-picky people who enjoy finding errors and fixing them. The result to the user - and the main reason I use Open Source software - is that it's incredibly robust - it rarely crashes. In fact, it's the backbone of my computer network. Microsoft would love to stop this development, but it can't follow its usual strategy of buying up a competitor: There isn't any company to buy, because Open Source software is the product of individual programmers all over the world. But what really terrifies Microsoft is the license used on this type of software. It says that anyone can use the code, but - and this is the twist that scares Microsoft - if you do you must release your entire source code, and allow anyone to use it and distribute it. No wonder a Microsoft Vice-president likens this license to a virus. So, will the Open Source movement be the David that eventually slays the Microsoft Goliath? It's unlikely it'll dislodge Windows any time soon from your home computer, but I'll tell you where to watch the battle: On the internet. Since 1995 the number of computers that route web traffic and e-mail around the world has grown from twenty-five thousand to six billion. Microsoft would love to dominate this market - yet over 70% of these web servers run an Open Source Program called Apache, compared to only 20% that use Microsoft software. And the Open Source program is increasing its share every year. Copyright 2005 William S. Hammack Enterprises hammack@netbox.com Reprinted with Bill's personal permission. * 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 1 New From PG Australia [Australian, Canadian Copyright Etc.] 38 New Public Domain eBooks Under US Copyright *Headline News from Edupage, etc. *Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists *** *eBook Milestones We Are ~1/4 Of The Way From 15,000 to 20,000!!! 16,248 eBooks As Of Today!!! [See note at top, count might be as low as 16,244] [I am running the rest of the counts separately] 13,140 New eBooks Since The Start Of 2001 We Have Produced 1289 eBooks in 2005 We Are ~62% of the Way from 10,000 to 20,000 We are ~25% of the Way from 15,000 to 20,000 3,752 to go to 20,000!!! We have now averaged ~480 eBooks per year since July 4th, 1971 We Averaged About 339 eBooks Per Month In 2004 We Are Averaging About 286 books Per Month This Year We Are Averaging About 68 eBooks Per Week This Year 39 This Week It took ~32 years, from 1971 to 2003 to do our 1st 10,000 eBooks It took ~32 months, from 2002 to 2005 for our last 10,000 eBooks It took ~10 years from 1993 to 2003 to grow from 100 eBooks to 10,100 It took ~1.25 years from Oct. 2003 to Jan. 2005 from 10,000 to 15,000 * ***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.] [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@pobox.com and gbnewby@pglaf.org if you would like to volunteer.] This is Michael Hart's "Founder's Comments" section of the Newsletter *** ***Continuing Requests New Sites and Announcements * Darwin!!! Would anyone like to work on reproofing our Darwin collection and creating a compilation file as requested by our readers. We could also use some help making some new editions of "The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes" and "Frankenstein." * Project Gutenberg of Canada needs your help! Please email: pgcanada@lists.pglaf.org To subscribe to the pgcanada list, please visit: http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/pgcanada * v0.2 version of PodReader is out, and it interfaces to PG. This allows users to browse the catalog on their Desktop, pick a book, and have it downloaded to their iPod in the correct format...this is a good plus for PG users since it makes it a lot easier to get to PG documents. http://homepage.mac.com/ptwobrussell/podreader.html * 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! * REQUEST FOR RUSSIAN TRANSLATOR We are trying to start up a Project Gutenberg Russian Team, and we need someone to translate simple email messages from members of Project Gutenberg who want to provide a service to the Russian Team, but who do not know Russian. . .these people will be helping with scanning, finding books, etc. The messages will be in MS Word's .doc format in Cyrillic, we need them translated into English, also in a .doc file. Thanks!!! Contact Jared Buck <JBuck814366460@aol.com> * Please visit and test our newest site: www.pgcc.net [also available as www.gutenberg.us and www.gutenberg.cc] The Project Gutenberg Consortia Center [PGCC] Please let us know of any eBook collections that would be suitable for inclusion: public domain or copyrighted, for which we must ask permission. [or listed as copyrighted with permission] You should see some significant changes this week. * There is a new 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@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 04.50 months of this year, we produced 1289 new eBooks. It took us from July 1971 to Jan 1998 to produce our first 1289 eBooks! That's 19 WEEKS as Compared to ~27 Years! 39 New eBooks This Week 49 New eBooks Last Week 88 New eBooks This Month [May] ~286 Average Per Month in 2005 336 Average Per Month in 2004 355 Average Per Month in 2003 203 Average Per Month in 2002 103 Average Per Month in 2001 1289 New eBooks in 2005 4049 New eBooks in 2004 4164 New eBooks in 2003 2441 New eBooks in 2002 1240 New eBooks in 2001 ==== 13183 New eBooks Since Start Of 2001 That's Only 52.50 Months! About 250 books per month 16,248 Total Project Gutenberg eBooks 12,700 eBooks This Week Last Year ==== 3,544 New eBooks In Last 12 Months 437 eBooks From Project Gutenberg of Australia * PROJECT GUTENBERG DISTRIBUTED PROOFREADERS UPDATE: Since starting production in October 2000, Distributed Proofreaders has contributed 6,827 eBooks to Project Gutenberg. 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 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 *** Please also note that over 23,000 eBooks are listed via The Online Books Page, of which over 5,300 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 #133 of 2005 This Completes Week #19 and Month #04.50 [364 days this year] 231 Days/34 Weeks To Go [We get 52 Wednesdays this year] 3,752 Books To Go To #20,000 [Our production year begins/ends 1st Wednesday of the month/year] 68 Weekly Average in 2005 78 Weekly Average in 2004 79 Weekly Average in 2003 47 Weekly Average in 2002 24 Weekly Average in 2001 41 Only 41 Numbers Left On Our Reserved Numbers list [Used to be well over 100] *** 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@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@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@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@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! 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Note that updated eBooks usually go in their original directory (e.g., etext99, etext00, etc.) *** Statistical Review In the 19 weeks of this year, we have produced 1289 new eBooks. It took us from 7/71 to 2/98 to produce our FIRST 1289 eBooks!!! That's 19 WEEKS as Compared to ~27 YEARS!!! FLASHBACK! Here's a sample of what books we were doing around eBook #1289 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 have been reposted] La belle Gabrielle, vol. 1, by Auguste Maquet 11300 [Language: French] O cancioneiro portuguez da Vaticana, by Teophilo Braga 11299 [Subtitle: e suas relacoes com outros cancioneiros dos seculos XIII e XIV] [From: Zeitschrift fuer Romanische Philologie 1877] [Language: Portuguese] Wanderings by Southern Waters, Eastern Aquitaine, Edward Harrison Barker 11298 Travels Through the Empire of Morocco, by John Buffa 11297 Tyomiehen vaimo, by Minna Canth 11296 [Language: Finnish] Lehtori Hellmanin vaimo, by Minna Canth 11295 [Language: Finnish] Juhana Herttuan ja Catharina Jagellonican lauluja, by Eino Leino 11294 [Language: Finnish] Jan van Huysums Blomsterstykke, by Henrik Wergeland 11293 [Language: Norwegian] Sekund vecnosti, by Dragutin J. Ilijc 11292 [Subtitle: istocnjacki roman] [Translated title: One Second of Eternity: An Eastern Novel] [Language: Serbian] Kameno doba, by Jovan Zujovic 11291 [Title translation: Stone Age] [Language: Serbian] Emilie the Peacemaker, by Mrs. Thomas Geldart 11290 What is Coming?, by H. G. Wells 11289 Ons Vaderland van de vroegste tijden tot de 15de eeuw, by Coopman 11288 [Author: M. Lievevrouw-Coopman] [Language: Dutch] De omwenteling van 1830, by Hendrik Conscience 11287 [Language: Dutch] Meesterstukken van Rembrandt Harmensz. Van Rijn, by G. Kielder 11286 [Subtitle: Leesboek voor het Lager en Voortgezet Onderwijs] [Language: Dutch] Een Heldin, by A.C. Kuiper 11285 [Language: Dutch] Punch, Vol. 156, 26 Mar 1919, Ed. by Sir Owen Seaman 11284 Plays of Gods and Men, by Lord Dunsany 11283 The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 2, No 336 11282 The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 2, No 334 11281 Maggie Miller, by Mary J. Holmes 11280 The Slim Princess, by George Ade 11279 Folk-Tales of Napoleon, by Honore de Balzac and Alexander Amphiteatrof 11278 [Subtitle: The Napoleon of the People; Napoleonder] [Translated, and an introduction added, by George Kennan] Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life, by E. A. Wallis Budge 11277 Civil Government in the United States, by John Fiske 11276 [Title: Civil Government in the United States Considered with Some Reference to Its Origins] The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus, by American Anti-Slavery Society 11275 [Contains: etexts 11271, 11272, 11273 and 11274] Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 4 of 4, by American Anti-Slavery Society 11274 Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 3 of 4, by American Anti-Slavery Society 11273 Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 2 of 4, by American Anti-Slavery Society 11272 Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 1 of 4, by American Anti-Slavery Society 11271 Practical Illustration of Woman's Right to Labor, by Marie E. Zakrzewska 11270 [Subtitle: A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Late of Berlin, Prussia] [Editor: Caroline H. Dall] * Have We Given Away A Trillion Books/Dollars Yet??? With 16,289 eBooks online as of May 18, 2005 it now takes an average of ~1% of the world gaining a nominal value of ~$.96 from each book. 1% of the world population is 64,422,556 x 16,248 x $.96 = ~$1 trillion] [Google "world population" "popclock" to get the most current figures.] With 16,289 eBooks online as of May 18, 2005 it now takes an average of 100,000,000 readers gaining a nominal value of $0.62 from each book, This "cost" is down from about $.79 when we had 12,700 eBooks a year ago. 100 million readers is only ~1.5% of the world's population! At 16,248 eBooks in 33 Years and 10.50 Months We Averaged ~480 Per Year 40.0 Per Month 1.31 Per Day At 1289 eBooks Done In The 133 Days Of 2005 We Averaged 10 Per Day 68 Per Week 286 Per Month 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 5th was the first Wednesday of 2005, and thus ended PG's production year of 2004 and began the production year of 2005 at noon. This year there will be 52 Wednesdays, thus no extra week. *** *Headline News from Edupage [PG Editor's Comments In Brackets] MOVING BEYOND LISTS FOR SEARCHING THE WEB Supporters of non-text-based representations of Web search results got a boost this week as Groxis, the makers of Grokker, released a version of the software that runs as a Java plug-in for browsers. Previously, the software, which returns search results in a circular "map," was only available as a separate, $49 application. The company will now depend on revenue from advertisements placed next to search results by search engine Yahoo. For the past nine months, 2,000 students and faculty of Stanford University have been testing the Grokker software, which has earned a strong following there. Michael A. Keller, Stanford's head librarian and an adviser to Groxis, said the application allows users to find appropriate information more quickly. Another company, Vivisimo, is developing a search engine that, while still text-based, displays groups of folders next to ranked lists of results. The folders give users another method of sifting through search results for useful resources. New York Times, 9 May 2005 (registration req'd) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/09/technology/09yahoo.html We'd like more feedback on this, Grokker, and similar programs. REPLACING BOOKS WITH COMPUTERS IN LIBRARIES [This article is well worth reading, more than one point of view in it] As digital delivery of printed material becomes increasingly efficient and common, some colleges and universities are relocating books from libraries to make room for facilities where students access content on computers. The University of Southern California was one of the first to create such a digital learning laboratory in 1994, and in the past few years it has been joined by schools including Emory University, the University of Georgia, the University of Arizona, the University of Michigan, and the University of Houston. The University of Texas at Austin has recently decided to move all of the books from its undergraduate library to other facilities and create an "electronic information commons." No one expects books to disappear completely, but, according to Geneva Henry, executive director of the digital library initiative at Rice University, libraries should be primarily concerned with the exchange of ideas rather than simply storage of books. As colleges and universities work to provide appropriate services to students who have grown up with computers, the trend to use electronic resources is likely to continue. New York Times, 14 May 2005 (registration req'd) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/14/education/14library.html CLICKING ON CAMPUS Faculty at hundreds of colleges and universities are using small electronic devices similar to television remote controls as part of their in-class instruction. Commonly referred to as "clickers," the devices allow students to respond to instructor questions by choosing one of several options or, in some cases, by entering a numeric answer. Answers are transmitted by either infrared or radio frequency signal to a receiver connected to a computer, which logs the responses and can track individual students' responses, as for a quiz, or display responses from the entire class anonymously. Faculty who use the devices said that because they allow students to respond anonymously, they encourage participation from students who might be too shy to answer verbally in class, and they elicit more honest answers on controversial subjects. Stephen Bradforth, a chemistry professor at the University of Southern California, said that after he began using clickers in his classes, attendance and participation increased. He also noted that the devices force professors to think differently about how they teach their courses. Wired News, 14 May 2005 http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,67530,00.html UNIVERSITY SEEKS NAMES OF BLOGGERS Officials at St. Lawrence University are trying to obtain the names of individuals responsible for a blog that includes content the university finds inappropriate. Included in the blog, whose stated goal is to fight a "right-wing assault" on the university, are pictures of and harshly derogatory comments about students and faculty whom the blog's contributors see as conservative. Other blog posts criticize university policies and administrators, but Macreena Doyle, a spokesperson for St. Lawrence, said the institution is most concerned about the anonymous attacks on students. "If these were posters attacking students on campus," said Doyle, "we would take action." The university has filed "John Doe" court actions with Time Warner Cable, whose service was used to make postings to the blog, demanding information that would identify the blog's contributors. Google disclosed IP addresses from which blog postings came after being ordered to do so by the courts, but it is not clear whether Time Warner will do the same. Inside Higher Ed, 13 May 2005 http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/05/13/lawrence TEACHER TRAINING PROGRAM AT U OF MAINE TO REQUIRE IBOOKS Beginning in the fall 2005 semester, students entering the teacher certification program at the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Maine will be required to have Apple iBook laptop computers. According to Robert Cobb, dean of the college, "It is essential that aspiring teachers understand and know how and when to use wireless laptop technology in the teaching and learning process." The machines will meet a standard configuration, both for hardware and software, as determined by the college. The college's Teacher Education Faculty opted for Apple computers because they are less frequently the targets of computer viruses, relative to Windows-based machines, and because of the state's Learning Technology Initiative. Under that program, all seventh- and eighth-grade students and teachers in Maine public schools have iBook computers. Macworld, 11 May 2005 http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/05/11/umaine/index.php IBM PUSHES FIREFOX The Firefox Web browser received a boost this week when IBM began encouraging all of its more than 300,000 employees to use the open source browser instead of Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE). Employees will be able to download the browser from company servers, and IBM help desk staff will be trained to support the browsers. Despite having been downloaded about 50 million times since its launch last November, Firefox is still dwarfed by IE, which holds more than 90 percent of the browser market. IBM has a history of supporting open source products, and the Firefox announcement furthers its support of open source technologies while shedding some of the company's dependence on Microsoft products. Brian Truskowski, chief information officer at IBM, said supporting Firefox is a "good example of walking the talk when it comes to open standards and open source." Truskowski said he expects IBM will ultimately save money using Firefox instead of IE. CNET, 12 May 2005 http://news.com.com/2100-7344_3-5704750.html DUTCH ACADEMICS LAUNCH OPEN-ACCESS SITE Dutch academics have publicly announced a Web site that offers free access to scholarly material from all of the country's universities. The Digital Academic Repositories (DARE) project, which started a year ago as a test program, is a joint effort among all Dutch universities, the National Library of the Netherlands, the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research. DARE includes 47,000 academic articles and other digital resources, including bibliographic information, full text materials, and audio and video files. Organizers of the project said no other country allows such widespread and easy access to its academic research. Such open access publishing projects remain anathema to most commercial publishers, but supporters of open access argue that it is the appropriate publishing model, given digital technologies and increasing subscription costs for traditional academic publishing. The Register, 11 May 2005 http://www.theregister.com/2005/05/11/open_access_research/ HAMLET DATABASE NEARS COMPLETION An online database that includes all available commentary on Shakespeare's Hamlet is expected to debut within the next few months. The database was the brainchild of Bernice W. Kliman, who, in the early 1990s was working on a printed edition of such a collection for the Modern Language Association. Kliman saw the Internet as a better tool for such a project, and she raised about $1 million from the National Endowment for the Humanities for her idea. Over the past 10 years, scholars including Eric C. Rasmussen, a professor of English at the University of Nevada at Reno, have been working to gather every bit of scholarship and criticism ever written about the play and add it to the database. When the database is complete, users will be "able to see 400 years' worth of commentary" for any single line of the play, according to Rasmussen. Certain items from critics in the 20th century had to be left out, however, due to copyright concerns. "We tried to, of course, credit the edition," said Kliman, "but also just paraphrase rather than copy sentence by sentence." Chronicle of Higher Education, 10 May 2005 http://chronicle.com/free/2005/05/2005051001t.htm You have been reading excerpts from Edupage: If you have questions or comments about Edupage, send e-mail to: edupage@educause.edu To SUBSCRIBE to Edupage, send a message to LISTSERV@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 The list of billion dollar companies defaulting on their pensions plans is enormous, including Bethelhem Steel, National Steel, Polaroid, Kaiser Aluminum, US Airways, etc. *STRANGE QUOTE OF THE WEEK UK Member of Parliament Galloway's entire address to U.S. DOUBLESPEAK OF THE WEEK Given court rulings and new bills signed into law, it is now easier for corporations to declare bankruptcy to get out of their pension plan responsibilities, but in great reversal, it is now harder for bankruptcy to be declared by an individual or family. It turns out this one is having increased effects, while not being reported. *PREDICTIONS OF THE WEEK Graphical representations of search data, see above, will become a major information tool. Try the new Grokker. . . . *ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK Women who wear makeup get promoted 30% faster than those who do not. * You've probably seen something like this statistic: "A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate Washington spends it." Then: "This may have been true a half a billion seconds ago, too, but now they're spending faster, so it doesn't take so long. It's less than five hours." And lately: "It's 3 hours, 30 minutes now, for the feds to spend a billion USD, not counting some off-budget expenditures." * "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 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 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. 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