pt1a1.806 pt1b1.806 Weekly_August_09.txt ***The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, August 09, 2006 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 I had a crash during editing, please let me know if I missed any fixes, some parts were duplicated, some might be missing. Thanks!!! Michael * For now I am leaving PT1a and PT1b combined. Please also let me know if you think these Newsletters are a waste of time or if you think I/we should keep doing them. Thanks! Michael * We are interested in increasing the "SF" available at Project Gutenberg of Australia. To this end we are happy to receive donations of ebooks to add to our collection. SF, in this context can mean: Science, Speculative, Superhero, Swords, Sorcery, Spies, Supernatural and Scary Fiction. Of course, we are only able to accept works that are public domain in Australia. Generally speaking, this means that the author died in 1954 or earlier. Please see our WANTED list at http://gutenberg.net.au/wanted.html for authors and works of interest. If you have suggestions for authors or works to add to the list, please let us know. Do check first that they are not already available at Project Gutenberg Australia or Project Gutenberg, please. Contact details are provided on the WANTED page. http://gutenberg.net.au/wanted.html As always, ebooks by Australian authors and of general Australian interest are always greatly appreciated. Editor's comments appear in [brackets]. 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 * 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 *Headline News from Edupage, etc. *Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists *** *eBook Milestones* 20,619 eBooks As Of Today At These Four PG Sites 18,973 Project Gutenberg US [+ 52] [NOT Including PG Australia] 1,024 Australian eBooks [+ 24] [NOT Included in above line] 330 Gutenberg Europe [+ 0] [NOT Included in above lines] 369 PG PrePrint Site [+ 1] [NOT Inclucded in above lines] 20,696 Grand Total [+ 77] 20,696 [I added a few we missed last week....] [via our automated program, versus by hand] [Please note we have several counting methods, and they often differ by several book that we have to hunt down by hand to reconcile.] [Pleast note there is some duplication between these various collections. voluntgeers needed to take these duplications into account.] ~7% of the way from 20,000 to 30,000 75,000+ eBooks at the PG Consortia Center http://www.gutenberg.cc [Please note that the four collections totals are eBooks that originated as created, edited, proofread, formatted, etc., by Project Gutenberg and its 50,000 volunteers, while the Project Gutenberg Consortia Center with 75,000+ eBooks contains entire eBook collections from other sources, all the production statistics given here are for some 20,000+ eBooks created by the various teams of Project Gutenberg volunteers, for which we share the responsibility of maintaining. The Consortia Center eBooks were and are the responsibility of the donating eLibraries, and we would be happy to forward any suggestions for correction to those eLibraries, but those eBooks must be editing by the donating parties, as per their requests.] * ***582 eBooks Averaged Per Year Since July 4, 1971*** 17,628 New eBooks Since The Start Of 2001 That's ~263 eBooks per Month for ~67.00 Months 2,548 New eBooks in 2006 at These Four Sites 34 New eBooks From Distributed Proofreaders 8,872 total from Distributed Proofreaders Since October, 2000 [Details in PT1B] [Currently over 36,000 DP volunteers] [Note, PGDP mostly included in US eBooks] [Note, PGEU has its own Distributed Proofreaders whose total closely matches their grand total] We Averaged ~339 eBooks Per Month In 2004 We Averaged ~248 eBooks Per Month In 2005 [Including PG Australia] We Are Averaging ~363 eBooks Per Month This Year!!! [Including PGAu, PGEu and PrePrints] All Four Sites Combined Are Averaging 82 eBooks Per Week In 2006 77 This Week 77 This Month [Aug] It took ~32 years, from 1971 to 2003 to do our 1st 10,000 eBooks It took ~12.5 years from Jan. 1994 to Jun. 2006 to go from 100 to 20,100 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 ~2.8 years from Oct. 2003 to Jun. 2006 from 10,000 to 20,000 Not counting the addition of The Project Gutenberg Consortia Center, through whom over 100 other eLibraries have donated their collections. * [Daily PrePrints stats at http://preprints.readingroo.ms/] Please note that sometimes it takes a few weeks for entire collections to fully appear in the PrePrints Section, thus the count sometimes jumps by a large number when the files are eventually completed and added in. Also note that the PrePrint files are just that, PrePrints, and thus may move later to other locations, including the main collection or The Project Gutenberg Consortia Center, etc. For example, on June 14, 200 WAP compatible cell phone eBooks appeared, and will likely be moved to other collection points later. The entire process of working out the details just to send them to the PrePrints Section took well over a month. Even with the speeded up process of the PrePrints Section, it still takes a certain amount of time to collect and put such a large collection online in a proper manner. * [Ignore for the moment] [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@pobox.com and gbnewby@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 ***BREAK FOR PT1A AND PT1B*** pt1a1.806 pt1b1.806 Weekly_August_09.txt ***The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, August 09, 2006 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 ***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. Plus many books not available on line, a good place to search for books by specific authors who you are interested in. 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 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 07.00 months of this year, PG produced 2,548 new eBooks. It took us from Jul 1971 to Mar 2001 to produce our first 2,548 eBooks! That's 31 WEEKS as Compared to ~30 Years!!! 77 New eBooks This Week 142 New eBooks Last Week 77 New eBooks This Month [Aug] 364 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 2548 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 ==== 17,628 New eBooks Since Start Of 2001 That's Only 67.00 Months! ~263 books per month! 20,619 Total Project Gutenberg eBooks 16,927 eBooks This Week Last Year ==== 3,769 New eBooks In Last 12 Months [Incl. PGAu, PGEu & PrePrints] 1,024 eBooks From Project Gutenberg of Australia [This does NOT include PGAu eBooks posted at the U.S. site: www.gutenberg.org ] 330 eBooks From Project Gutenberg of Europe 369 Items in Project Gutenberg PrePrints ~75,000+ Project Gutenberg Consortia Center http://www.gutenberg.cc 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.readingroo.ms * PROJECT GUTENBERG DISTRIBUTED PROOFREADERS UPDATE: Since starting production in October 2000, Distributed Proofreaders has contributed 8,872 Books to Project Gutenberg. 34 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 The PGCC collection at http://www.gutenberg.cc has doubled in size from the listings below, but we don't have exactly matching collection sizes yet for a new breakdown. The number of individual eBooks now exceeds 75,000. * PGCC's current eBook and eDocument Collections listings of 18 collections. . .with this week's listing as: [This list is being updated as the moment, you can get the entire list on the collections pages at gutenberg.cc] 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 Renascence 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 overall collection size, which has reduced the need to account for duplications and eBooks with files for each chapter, etc. 75,000+ Unique eBooks *** Please also note that over 25,000 eBooks are listed via The Online Books Page, of which over 6,300 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 #217 of 2006 This Completes Week #31 and Month #07.00 [364 days this year] 1R47Days/21 Weeks To Go [We get 52 Wednesdays this year] 9,304 Books To Go To #30,000 [Our production year begins/ends 1st Wednesday of the month/year] 82 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 42 Only ~42 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@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 31 weeks of this year, we have produced 2548 new eBooks. It took us from 07/71 to 05/01 to produce our FIRST 2548 eBooks!!! That's 31 WEEKS as Compared to ~30 YEARS!!! FLASHBACK! Here's a sample of what books we were doing around eBook #1954 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 Mar 2001 The Poor Clare, by Elizabeth Gaskell[E. Gaskell#9][prclrxxx.xxx] 2548 Mar 2001 Half a Life-time Ago, by Elizabeth Gaskell[E.G.#8][hlflfxxx.xxx] 2547 Mar 2001 Rustler Round-Up (Bar-20), C.E. Mulford[Mulford#1][hcrruxxx.xxx] 2546 [Title: Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up (Bar-20)] [Author: Clarence Edward Mulford] Mar 2001 When God Laughs, and Other Stories, by Jack London[gdlghxxx.xxx] 2545

From Sand Hill to Pine, by Bret Harte 2544 Polyuecte, by Pierre Corneille 2543 [Translator: Thomas Constable]

Mar 2001 The Doll's House, by Henrik Ibsen[Henrik Ibsen #5][dlshsxxx.xxx] 2542 Mar 2001 Character, by Samuel Smiles [Samuel Smiles #6][crctrxxx.xxx] 2541 Father and Son, by Edmund Gosse 2540 Mar 2001 The Malay Archipelago by Alfred Russell Wallace V2[2malayxx.xxx] 2539 (See also: V1 #2530) Mar 2001 Poems and Tales from Romania, by Simona Sumanaru [patfrxxx.xxx] 2538C [Author: Simona Sumanaru and Michael S. Hart] Mar 2001 The Pocket R.L.S., by Robert Louis Stevenson [#39][pkrlsxxx.xxx] 2537 Mar 2001 Amphitryon, A play by Moliere, Tr. by Waller [M#2][amphixxx.xxx] 2536 Eugene Pickering, by Henry James 2534 Mar 2001 Round the Sofa, by Elizabeth Gaskell [#8][rndsfxxx.xxx] 2533 The Half-Brothers, by Elizabeth Gaskell 2532 An Accursed Race, by Elizabeth Gaskell 2531 Feb 2001 The Malay Archipelago, by Alfred Russel Wallace [1malayxx.xxx] 2530 Feb 2001 The Analysis of Mind, by Bertrand Russell [analmdxx.xxx] 2529 Feb 2001 The Women of the French Salons, Amelia Gere Mason [frsalxxx.xxx] 2528 Feb 2001 The Sorrows of Young Werther, by J.W. Goethe [#31][sywerxxx.xxx] 2527 Feb 2001 The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali by Charles Johnston [patanxxx.xxx] 2526 Feb 2001 John Ingerfield etc by Jerome K. Jerome [#25][jhnngxxx.xxx] 2525 My Lady Ludlow, by Elizabeth Gaskell 2524 Feb 2001 The Memoirs of Victor Hugo, by Victor Hugo[Hugo#2][vhugoxxx.xxx] 2523 A Dark Night's Work, by Elizabeth Gaskell 2522 Lizzie Leigh, by Elizabeth Gaskell 2521 Feb 2001 The Man, by Bram Stoker [Bram Stoker #3][thmanxxx.xxx] 2520 Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi, by David Livingstone 2519 [Title: A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries] * Have We Given Away A Trillion Books/Dollars Yet? If our average eBook has reached just 1% of the world population of 6,533,604,659 that would be 20,696 x 65,336,047 = ~1.35 Trillion !!! With 20,696 eBooks online as of August 09, 2006 it now takes an average of ~1% of the world gaining a nominal value of ~$.74 from each book. [1% world population x #eBooks] 65,336,047 x 20,696 x $.74 = ~$1 Trillion [Google "world population" "popclock" to get the most current figures.] [By the way, the US "popclock" is about to turn to 300 million people.] [Just turned 299.4 million this week!] * A Trillion Dollars Given Away At Just $.49 Value Per Book To 100 Million With 20,696 eBooks online as of August 09, 2006 it now takes an average of 100,000,000 readers gaining a nominal value of $0.48 from each book. This "cost" is down from about $.59 when we had 16,927 eBooks a year ago. Our Target Audience Is 1.5% Of The World Population = ~100,000,000 people. At 20,696 eBooks in 35 Years and 01.00 Months We Averaged 590 Per Year 49 Per Month 1.62 Per Day If our average eBook has reached just 1% of the world population of 6,533,604,659 that would be 20,696 x 65,336,047 = ~1.35 Trillion !!! With 20,696 eBooks online as of August 09, 2006 it now takes an average of ~1% of the world gaining a nominal value of ~$.74 from each book. [1% world population x #eBooks] 65,336,047 x 20,696 x $.74 = ~$1 Trillion [Google "world population" "popclock" to get the most current figures.] [By the way, the US "popclock" is about to turn to 300 million people.] [Just turned 299.4 million this week!] * A Trillion Dollars Given Away At Just $.49 Value Per Book To 100 Million With 20,619 eBooks online as of August 02, 2006 it now takes an average of 100,000,000 readers gaining a nominal value of $0.49 from each book. This "cost" is down from about $.59 when we had 16,842 eBooks a year ago. Our Target Audience Is 1.5% Of The World Population = ~100,000,000 people. At 20,619 eBooks in 35 Years and 00.75 Months We Averaged 588 Per Year 49 Per Month 1.61 Per Day At 2471 eBooks Done In The 210 Days Of 2006 We Averaged 11.8 Per Day 82 per Week 366 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. ***BREAK FOR PT1A AND PT1B*** *Headline News from Edupage [PG Editor's Comments In Brackets] UC TO JOIN GOOGLE'S BOOK SCANNING PROJECT? The University of California is reportedly in talks with Google to join its controversial book-scanning project. The university is already participating in the Open Content Alliance (OCA), which is also working to digitize vast numbers of books but with a different approach. Rather than scanning all books, copyrighted or not, unless copyright holders request that a book be left out of the program, the OCA has taken the approach of only scanning copyrighted books whose owners have given explicit permission. The university and Google did not disclose details of the negotiations, but questions arose about how the institution's participation in the two projects might be reconciled. Brewster Kahle, director of the Internet Archive, which was a founder of the OCA, wondered if perhaps Google would move its project to a more open model, closer to that of the OCA, because, as he said, "there is no point in scanning these books twice." Daniel Greenstein, director of the University of California system's California Digital Library, said the issue is fundamentally not about specific companies or organizations but about the university's mission to support public education and explore new roles for libraries in the digital age. Chronicle of Higher Education, 3 August 2006 http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/08/2006080301t.htm CHILD ONLINE IDENTITY CARD DEBUTS An online identity service for children has debuted in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, and Australia. Conceived by U.K. businessman Alex Hewitt, the NetIDMe system requires parents to apply for ID cards for their kids and to supply a credit card as verification. Another person who knows the child must countersign the application. Once an ID is established, users can communicate with others online with the assurance that users who say they are children are not in fact adults who prey on kids. The service, which costs 10 pounds per year, is only effective if both communicating parties participate. Jim Gamble, chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, said that this effort, like any other that works to verify the age and identity of Internet users, will help prevent children from becoming victims of online predators. Detective Chief Superintendent Tom Porter of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency noted that Web users should nonetheless be cautious. "We would advise all parents and young people to...ensure no personally identifiable information is shared with online strangers." BBC, 2 August 2006 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5238992.stm CHINA CLOSES LIBERAL WEB SITE Government officials in China have taken another step in limiting what Internet users in the country can access, causing an uproar among intellectuals and others critical of the Communist Party. During the past week, access inside China to the Century China Web site has been cut off, prompting a petition that accuses the government of trying to control public opinion. More than 100 outspoken individuals--both inside the country and abroad--have signed the petition, which was sent by e-mail to the media. The petition states, in part, "The shutdown of Century China is just another instance of the Chinese government suppressing the freedom of its people." It also describes the Century China Web site as "the one spiritual home we had in the cyberworld." CNET, 2 August 2006 http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6101267.html You've been reading excerpts from Edupage: 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 STATISTICS OF THE WEEK Concerning the recent miniumum wage and estate tax legislation. There are ~6.25 million minimum wage workers in the United States. On the average each ones works under 2,000 hours per year. 250 days times 8 hours = 2,000 hours. 50 weeks times 40 hours = 2,000 hours. Obivously there are more days off than just weekends, so this is a very conservative estimate for these purposes. At $2 per year increase in pay, this about about $4,000 each. 6.25 million times $4,000 = 25 billion dollars. After a 3 year phase in period. 26.25 billion if you count in the extra dime, which will be eaten by inflation before the first year of phasing in. Now let's count the other side of the coin. If the estate tax repeal only effects the richest 1% of the US, that is about 3 million people. Given that people are dying on the average at the rate of well over 1% per year [the average life-expectancy would have to be 100, for it to be 1%, and it is more like 75, for those dying today, though we might have to take into account better health care for the wealthy, since the US is the only developed country without a national health care. So, to be VERY conservative in our estimation, we will figure on a 1% per year death rate among the 1% wealtiest Americans. That's 30,000 people per year who stand to get estate tax repeal. At just 1 million dollars each that is 30 billion dollars. . . . When you look at your own estate, or that of your parents, might be that you will realize that the estates of the top 1% are many times larger than yours and yours is still a reasonable fraction of a million dollars. Now perhaps you can visualize why the legistlation was defeated. 1. The estate tax releal would kick in right away. 2. The minimum wage raise was already eaten away by inflation. 3. The minimum wage figures are in pre-tax dollars, workers do not get nearly that much in their pockets. 4. The estate tax is in post-tax dollars, they keep it all. 5. The great fortunes of the Rockefellers, etc. were made with income tax rates as high as 93%, and passed on with estate tax. /

From "Media Matters"

The states with the greastest discrepancies between exit polls and votes reported were Republican states. [Some say this is just because Republicans are more private.] *HEADLINE NEWS AVOIDED BY MOST OF THE MAJOR U.S. MEDIA *DOUBLESPEAK OF THE WEEK [Sorry, this was supposed to go in last week, still learning system.] The House passed a bill finally raising the minimum wage from $5.15 over a 3 year period to ~$7.25, but only for the quid pro quo of an extra repeal of the estate tax on the very wealthy. In reality, the poor are not even really getting a raise, they are merely getting an inflation offset, while the rich are getting the millions they now have passed on from generation to generation for the formation of the same kind of "Landed Gentry" aristocracy that ruined Europe and caused the American and French revolutions. Let's see: "You give us billions in tax cuts for the very wealthy and we will give you ~$2 an hour in inflated money that gives your salary less buying power than was available 50 years ago." "That's what common folk call: "Robbing Peter to pay Paul." Robin Hood would call it: "Robbing the poor to give to the rich." MORE DOUBLESPEAK The Senate refused to repeal 100% of the estate tax that had been vilified as "The Death Tax," by embattled White House guru Karl Rove, but in the end it will cost the real taxpayers just as much, as the deal is being engineered by repealing what may be all timber company taxes to win over Senate votes from timber rich Washington State. All in all The Estate Tax is being repealed for all but the richest 1% or less in the country, and it should be mentioned that that 1% owns half of everything that can be owned in the United States. Source: The Washington Post [I wonder how rest of the country would react to all this if that 1% actually lived on their blocks, and owned half the land, half the cars, half the stocks, bonds, cash, boats, etc. while the next 2% owned half of what was left, and the next 4% owned half of that, etc. . .leaving only a few percent to be earned by 90% of the block's residents???] *QUOTES OF THE WEEK *PREDICTIONS OF THE WEEK It will eventually be determined that there has been an overall pattern of divulging the personal information of U.S. citizens. By the way, I think evidence of this was in the media last week. *ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK * 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, with the obvious exclusion of the 11-12 million immigrant workers now being mentioned so much in the news. Still hoping for more statistical updates and additional entries. [This one is getting a little out of date, as the US population 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@pglaf.org