GWeekly_May_13.txt **The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, May 13, 2005 PT1** *******eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since July 4, 1971****** Note: Several last minute changes were made due to finding some errors in numbers recorded weeks or months ago, and I managed to change most of them right now, but not all. I hope to get them all corrected next week. The changes are small, mostly errors of one or two eBooks counted twice. 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 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 Wanted: People who are involved in conversations on Slashdot, Salon, etc. * 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." This week marks the birthday of Gaston Leroux, most noted as the author of The Phantom of the Opera. The following are available at www.gutenberg.org [I note we do NOT have Phantom in the original French, any volunteers?] Le parfum de la Dame en noir, by Gaston Leroux 15554 [The Perfume of the Lady in Black, Language: French] Les etranges noces de Rouletabille, by Gaston Leroux 13772 [The Strange Wedding Of Rouletabille, Language: French] Le mystere de la chambre jaune, by Gaston Leroux 13765 [The Mystery of the Yellow Room, Language: French] Mar 1999 The Secret of the Night, by Gaston Leroux [GL #3][tsotnxxx.xxx] 1686 Mar 1999 Mystery of the Yellow Room, by Gaston Leroux[GL#2][ylormxxx.xxx] 1685 [Contains ASCII diagrams, best viewed with non-proportional fonts.] Oct 1994 The Phantom of the Opera, by Gaston Leroux [phantxxx.xxx] 175 * 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! * 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.] 48 New Public Domain eBooks Under US Copyright *Headline News from Edupage *Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists *** *eBook Milestones 16,205 eBooks As Of Today!!! 13,140 New eBooks Since The Start Of 2001 We Have Produced 1250 eBooks in 2005 We Are ~62% of the Way from 10,000 to 20,000 We are ~24% of the Way from 15,000 to 20,000 3,795 to go to 20,000!!! We have now averaged ~479 eBooks per year since July 4th, 1971 We Averaged About 339 eBooks Per Month In 2004 We Are Averaging About 295 books Per Month This Year We Are Averaging About 70 eBooks Per Week This Year 49 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 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. 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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 04.25 months of this year, we produced 1253 new eBooks. It took us from July 1971 to Jan 1998 to produce our first 1253 eBooks! That's 17 WEEKS as Compared to ~26 Years! 49 New eBooks This Week 50 New eBooks Last Week 49 New eBooks This Month [May] 300 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 1250 New eBooks in 2005 4049 New eBooks in 2004 4164 New eBooks in 2003 2441 New eBooks in 2002 1240 New eBooks in 2001 ==== 13144 New eBooks Since Start Of 2001 That's Only 52.50 Months! About 250 books per month 16,205 Total Project Gutenberg eBooks 12,581 eBooks This Week Last Year ==== 3,624 New eBooks In Last 12 Months 436 eBooks From Project Gutenberg of Australia * PROJECT GUTENBERG DISTRIBUTED PROOFREADERS UPDATE: Since starting production in October 2000, Distributed Proofreaders has contributed 6,758 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. 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Note that updated eBooks usually go in their original directory (e.g., etext99, etext00, etc.) *** Statistical Review In the 18 weeks of this year, we have produced 1250 new eBooks. It took us from 7/71 to 2/98 to produce our FIRST 1250 eBooks!!! That's 18 WEEKS as Compared to ~27 YEARS!!! FLASHBACK! Here's a sample of what books we were doing around eBook #1250 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] Apr 1998 Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley[#4][alxscxxx.xxx] 1275 Apr 1998 Martin Hyde the Duke's Messenger by John Masefield[mhydexxx.xxx] 1274 Apr 1998 The Autobiography of a Slander, by Edna Lyall [autosxxx.xxx] 1273 Apr 1998 Riddle of the Rhine/Chemical Strategy, by LeFebure[rrhinxxx.xxx] 1272 [Title: The Riddle of the Rhine: Chemical Strategy in Peace and War] [Author: Victor LeFebure] Apr 1998 Bygone Beliefs, by H. Stanley Redgrove [byblfxxx.xxx] 1271 Apr 1998 In Defense of Women, by H. L. Mencken [ndwmnxxx.xxx] 1270 Apr 1998 Soul of a Bishop, by H. G. Wells [H. G. Wells #15][sbshpxxx.xxx] 1269 Apr 1998 The Mysterious Island, by Jules Verne [Verne #6] [milndxxx.xxx] 1268 Apr 1998 Kai Lung's Golden Hours, by Ernest Bramah[Bramah3][klsghxxx.xxx] 1267 Apr 1998 Lavender and Old Lace, by Myrtle Reed [lvolcxxx.xxx] 1266 Apr 1998 Queen Victoria, by Lytton Strachey [qvctrxxx.xxx] 1265 Apr 1998 Wheels of Chance/Bicycling Idyll by H.G. Wells #14[wchncxxx.xxx] 1264 Apr 1998 The Glimpses of the Moon, by Edith Wharton [EW#9][tgotmxxx.xxx] 1263 Apr 1998 Heritage of the Desert, by Zane Grey[Zane Grey #6][hdsrtxxx.xxx] 1262 Betty Zane, by Zane Grey 1261 Mar 1998 Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte [#7 by Bronte's] [janeyxxx.xxx] 1260 Mar 1998 Twenty Years After, by Alexandre Dumas [Pere #4] [3muskxxx.xxx] 1259 Mar 1998 Ten Years Later, by Alexandre Dumas[Dumas Pere #3][2muskxxx.xxx] 1258 Mar 1998 The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas [Pere #2][1muskxxx.xxx] 1257 Cyrano de Bergerac, by Edmond Rostand 1256 [Language: French] Pending / Unfilled 1255* Mar 1998 Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand [In English] [cdbenxxx.xxx] 1254 Mar 1998 A Simple Soul, by Gustave Flaubert [Flaubert #1] [ssengxxx.xxx] 1253 Mar 1998 Le Mort d'Arthur, by Thomas Malory Volume 2[TM#2][2martxxx.xxx] 1252 Mar 1998 Le Mort d'Arthur, by Thomas Malory Volume 1[TM#1][1martxxx.xxx] 1251 Mar 1998 Anthem, by Ayn Rand [Alice Rosenblum][Ayn Rand #1][anthmxxx.xxx] 1250 (Slightly different format in:) [anthmxxa.xxx] Mar 1998 Anthem, by Ayn Rand [Comparison of anthm10 & 10a] [anthmxxz.xxx] 1249 Mar 1998 Last of the Great Scouts, by Helen Cody Wetmore [bbillxxx.xxx] 1248 [Title: Last Of The Great Scouts, The Life Story Of Col. William F. Cody "Buffalo Bill", As Told By His Sister Helen Cody Wetmore] Mar 1998 Second April, by Edna St. Vincent Millay[Millay#2][aprilxxx.xxx] 1247 Mar 1998 The House of Dust, by Conrad Aiken [Aiken #1][hdustxxx.xxx] 1246 Mar 1998 Night and Day, by Virginia Woolf [Woolf #2][nidayxxx.xxx] 1245 * Have We Given Away A Trillion Books/Dollars Yet??? With 16,206 eBooks online as of May 11, 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 64,408,278 x 16,209 x $.96 = ~$1 trillion] [Google "world population" "popclock" to get the most current figures.] With 16,206 eBooks online as of May 11, 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 12,642 eBooks a year ago. 100 million readers is only ~1.5% of the world's population! At 16,205 eBooks in 33 Years and 10.25 Months We Averaged ~479 Per Year 39.9 Per Month 1.31 Per Day At 1250 eBooks Done In The 126 Days Of 2005 We Averaged 10 Per Day 70 Per Week 295 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 STUDENT SHUTS DOWN BLOG AFTER THREAT FROM SINGAPORE Chen Jiahao, a graduate student in chemical physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has shut down his personal blog and issued two apologies after an agency of the government in Singapore threatened to sue Chen for defamation. A*Star, the agency in Singapore dealing with science and research, accused Chen, who is from Singapore, of libelous statements that "went way beyond fair comment." The agency demanded a public apology but said Chen's first apology was insincere and insisted on another. A*Star said it welcomes various opinions and perspectives, but many in the journalism community rejected that claim. Singapore has long had a reputation for using tactics including lawsuits to silence critics. Organizations including the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters without Borders have decried Singapore's threats to Chen and journalists. "Chen criticized some of A*Star's policies," said Julien Pain, head of Reporters without Borders' Internet freedom desk, "but there was nothing defamatory in what he wrote." Reuters, 9 May 2005 http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?storyID=8422422 APPEALS COURT REJECTS BROADCAST FLAG A federal appeals court has struck down regulations passed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to control unauthorized dissemination of digital broadcasting signals. At issue was a "broadcast flag," a technology that would be added to digital signals that would prevent them from being distributed over the Internet. The FCC's regulation would also have required makers of video-recording equipment to modify their products to support the broadcast-flag technology. The American Library Association filed a case arguing that the regulation would impose undue restrictions on libraries, preventing them from distributing digital content to online classrooms. Consumer groups had also opposed the regulation, arguing it would drive up costs of electronic products and would keep consumers from making legitimate copies of digital works. In its ruling, the court said flatly that the FCC had overstepped its authority in issuing the regulation. Wall Street Journal, 6 May 2005 (sub. req'd) http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111539047987326903,00.html DARTMOUTH NEARS COMPLETION OF NETWORK CONVERGENCE Dartmouth College expects this fall to complete a project begun in 2001 to converge the school's phone, cable, and wireless systems into a single network. When finished, the network--described as the first of its kind at a U.S. university--will give students and faculty wireless access to the university's online services, including cable television and telephone, from anywhere on campus. In addition, the network will allow users to create individual "channels," which can include various forms of video content with a cable-quality signal. Channels could be set up, for example, to let students view video snippets of lectures when choosing classes. Having a network that allows students to watch cable programming any time, from anywhere on campus, including during class, has some worried about keeping students focused on studies, but university officials are optimistic that the network will offer compelling tools for professors to hold students' attention. Dartmouth said it saved more than $2 million by installing its new network when old systems needed to be replaced, and the network reportedly saves close to $1 million each year on maintenance and other costs. New York Times, 4 May 2005 (registration req'd) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/04/technology/techspecial/04zezima.html APPLE WORKS FOR SCHOOL IBOOK DEAL A tentative deal between Apple Computer and the Cobb County School District in Georgia could see as many as 63,000 iBook computers going to teachers and students in the district. The school board has already given its approval to the purchase of 17,000 iBooks, for all teachers and for students at four high schools. If approved, the program could be expanded to include all students in the district. Apple's efforts to persuade school districts to provide a computer for every student--what it calls its one-to-one solutions--are aimed at regaining ground in the education market that has been lost to companies selling Windows-based products, most notably Dell. In 2001, Apple signed a four-year deal with the Henrico County Public Schools in Virginia, only to see that contract given to Dell last week when it came up for renewal. Officials of Cobb County said they were aware of the situation at Henrico when they selected Apple but that the problems with that contract had been overcome. Henrico wanted the Microsoft Office software suite on their computers and didn't have it, according to Jay Dillion, a spokesperson for Cobb County. "We ... required Apple to pre-load Office on all our iBooks." CNET, 2 May 2005 http://news.com.com/2100-7342_3-5692363.html 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 General Kirkpatrick was busted to Colonel for Abu Ghraib events. *STRANGE QUOTE OF THE WEEK "The mainstream media is giving equal weight to fact and spin." Jeaneane Garafolo DOUBLESPEAK OF THE WEEK It turns out that government and military officials knew sat on the knowledge that that NFL star Pat Tillman been killed by "friendly fire" for weeks, waiting to figure out the best time, place and manner to release the data. * 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. *PREDICTIONS OF THE WEEK Graphical representations of search data, see above, will become a major information tool. *ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK 10 years ago 40% of workers were covered by pensions. Today it is only 20%, and half of those are underfunded. * The divorce rate in the U.S. passed 1/2 some time ago, and is now about half way to 2/3. * 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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