PT1b Weekly Project Gutenberg Newsletter
Weekly_November_02.txt The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, November 02, 2005 PT1 ******eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since July 4, 1971******* PT1B 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 ***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. 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Over 250 books per month! 17,438 Total Project Gutenberg eBooks 14,281 eBooks This Week Last Year ==== 3,157 New eBooks In Last 12 Months 499 eBooks From Project Gutenberg of Australia [This does NOT include PGAu eBooks posted at the U.S. site: www.gutenberg.org ] * PROJECT GUTENBERG DISTRIBUTED PROOFREADERS UPDATE: Since starting production in October 2000, Distributed Proofreaders has contributed 7,613 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. 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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 #301 of 2005 This Completes Week #43 and Month #10.00 [364 days this year] 77 Days/14 Weeks To Go [We get 52 Wednesdays this year] 2,542 Books To Go To #20,000 [Our production year begins/ends 1st Wednesday of the month/year] 58 Weekly Average in 2005 78 Weekly Average in 2004 79 Weekly Average in 2003 47 Weekly Average in 2002 24 Weekly Average in 2001 43 Only 43 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. 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Note that updated eBooks usually go in their original directory (e.g., etext99, etext00, etc.) *** Statistical Review In the 43 weeks of this year, we have produced 2482 new eBooks. It took us from 7/71 to 1/01 to produce our FIRST 2482 eBooks!!! That's 43 WEEKS as Compared to ~29.50 YEARS!!! FLASHBACK! Here's a sample of what books we were doing around eBook #2482 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] Feb 2001 Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse [Our English Edition] [siddhxxx.xxx] 2500 Feb 2001 Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse [In 8-bit German] [?siddxxx.xxx] 2499 [Language: German] Feb 2001 Addresses, by Henry Drummond [addrexxx.xxx] 2498 Feb 2001 Put Yourself in His Place, by Charles Reade [#4][phyipxxx.xxx] 2497 Feb 2001 Our Village, by Mary Russell Mitford [vllgxxxx.xxx] 2496 Feb 2001 Susy, A Story of the Plains, by Bret Harte [#12][susyxxxx.xxx] 2495 Feb 2001 The story of Saint Stanislaus Kostka, by W.T. Kane[stanixxx.xxx] 2494 Feb 2001 Adventures of Paddy the Beaver, Thornton W.Burgess[paddyxxx.xxx] 2493 Feb 2001 Orpheus in Mayfair & Other Stories, Maurice Baring[orphexxx.xxx] 2492 Feb 2001 Love or Fame; et. al., by Fannie Isabelle Sherrick[lvrfmxxx.xxx] 2491 Jan 2001 Lamia, by John Keats [Poetry/Poem] [John Keats #1][lamiaxxx.xxx] 2490 Jan 2001 Moby Dick, by Herman Melville [HM #3][mobyxxxx.xxx] 2489 (moby11.* is the complete text.) (See also #2701) (moby10a.* is only Chap. 72, missing from prior eBook #15) Jan 2001 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas, by Jules Verne[#13][2000010a.xxx] 2488 Jan 2001 Cross Roads, by Margaret E. Sangster [crsrdxxx.xxx] 2487 Jan 2001 Queer Little Folks, by Harriet Beecher Stowe[HBS2][qltfkxxx.xxx] 2486 Jan 2001 Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants, by Darwin[cplntxxx.xxx] 2485 Jan 2001 The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch's "Lives", by White [tbagpxxx.xxx] 2484 Jan 2001 Janice Day, Young Homemaker, by Helen Beecher Long[jncdyxxx.xxx] 2483 Jan 2001 New York, by James Fenimore Cooper[J.F. Cooper #6][nwyrkxxx.xxx] 2482 Jan 2001 The Civilization of Illiteracy (C)Mihai Nadin 1997[cviltxxx.xxx] 2481C * Have We Given Away A Trillion Books/Dollars Yet From http://gutenberg.org? 1.13 Trillion eBooks Given Away If our average eBook has reached just 1% of the world population of 6,476,488,859 that would be 17,438 x 64,764,889 = ~1.13 Trillion !!! With 17,438 eBooks online as of November 02, 2005 it now takes an average of ~1% of the world gaining a nominal value of ~$.89 from each book. [1% world population x #eBooks] 64,764,889 x 17,438 x $.89 = ~$1 Trillion [Google "world population" "popclock" to get the most current figures.] Our Target Audience Is 1.5% Of The World Population, or 100,000,000 readers. With 17,438 eBooks online as of November 02, 2005 it now takes an average of 100,000,000 readers gaining a nominal value of $0.57 from each book. This "cost" is down from about $.70 when we had 14,281 eBooks a year ago. 100 million readers is only ~1.5% of the world's population! At 17,438 eBooks in 34 Years and 04.00 Months We Averaged ~508 Per Year 42.3 Per Month 1.39 Per Day At 2482 eBooks Done In The 301 Days Of 2005 We Averaged 8.2 Per Day 58 Per Week 250 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. 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]. However, I just this moment heard a news item that made me wonder a bit more about the accuracy of the U.S. Census. A "Special Census" is taking place in Normal, Illinois, that is expected to count more people, by a factor of 3,000 or 3,400, depending on which source. 45,386 was the population as per the 2000 Census, so 3,000 added to this would be an increase of 6.6%, and 3,400 would be 7.5%, above a possibly automatic increase of 5% as per the same terms above but I presume this is in addition to previous adjustments. Of course, we should consider that we would have to double figures, perhaps to 15% from those above, if are considering the normal time between censuses of 10 years, these are for 5 years' growth. In previous news I heard about the U.S. Census, no mention was made about the annexation of various nearly locations as a cause of this normally unexpected growth, but it is mentioned at the site I found on the subject of the current Special Census. If annexation is the primary cause of such increases, country wide, then we should not be expecting a huge rise in the 2010 Census, but rather should expect something more along the norm. However, if it is not annexation, but more actual people on the average, then this might be an indicator that the population of the U.S. may have seen 300 million go by some time ago. For more details, see: www.normal.org/WhatsNew/Census.htm 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. 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Michael Hart