- PGCanada - lists.pglaf.org

What help do you need?
by Jennifer Zickerman 04 Mar '05

04 Mar '05

Hello. I keep seeing cryptic messages in the PG newsletter: "Project Gutenberg of Canada needs your help! Please email: pgcanada(a)lists.pglaf.org". What kind of help do you need? What's "pgcanada"? jen.

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Licensing for PG-Canada content
by Andrew Sly 29 Jan '05

29 Jan '05

On Thu, 27 Jan 2005, Darryl Moore wrote: > > > I'll open this discussion by suggesting a cc|ca licence option (1) > attribution > > http://creativecommons.ca/index.php?p=explained > > I.E. anyone can do anything they want so long as they attribute PGC as > the source. > I know that some people have expressed their concern over the PG license. However, I don't believe it should be discarded out of hand. A key point is that it does _not_ claim any copyright on the text itself and only restricts what can be done with the text as long as it is done along with the Project Gutenberg trademark. This helps to end the self-perpetuating new claims of copyright on old material that is so prevalent. I have a problem with releasing PG Canada e-books under an Attribution license that says we can: let others copy, distribute, display, and perform [our] copyrighted work - and derivative works based upon it - but only if they give [us] credit. If we own the copyright to an item, we are entitled to say that; but as long it truly is public domain material, we don't have a right to impose such restrictions on it. We could _request_ to be acknowledged as a source, but I don't see that we could require it. Andrew

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Re: PG-Canada / List of tasks to do
by Andrew Sly 29 Jan '05

29 Jan '05

I'd suggest that getting content and finding Public domain books is not something we need to worry about. Having enough interested volunteers to help produce them will probably be more of a challenge. I'll compare here with Project Gutenberg. Right now a bottle-neck is in having people to post-process the texts coming out of DP. There are plenty of people ready who could produce page scans of eligible books faster than they could be processed. As we will be dealing probably largely with post-1922 books I don't think it will be too hard to find books that are eligible for PG Canada. I admire the philosophy of letting volunteers do what they are interested in, or even just happen to find copies of. However, it couldn't hurt to have a list of requested books. Also, if it helps, I've got a large list of Canadian authors (or at least from Canadian referance sources) courtesy of Philip at the New General Catalog of Old Books & Authors http://www.kingkong.demon.co.uk/ngcoba/ngcoba.htm In the past, I have contributed a few dozen author names, missing dates, etc. for his lists, and I'd suggest he would be a worthwhile ally to have, particularly in the matter of sharing author birth and death dates. Andrew On Thu, 27 Jan 2005, Wallace J.McLean wrote: > > > I'd also suggest a list of notable books and their location might be > a > > good idea. I know a few people who have a number of books that are > not > > likely in the system yet, but really should be. If we could identify > > what cooperative people, have what books, then we might be able to > get a > > higher quality content sooner by prioritizing this list. > > > It's both easy and hard to get a list of eligible dead guys. Easy; just > use a pre-1955 year as an author name keyword in a library catalogue. > (You'll also get lots of authors born in 1954, unless you restrict your > search to imprints <1955 as well.) Hard; you get lots and lots of hits. > > What I've been promoting among some of the content-providing cabal is > this: > > Let's concentrate on post-1922 imprints. DP-USA/PG-USA can do anything > published before this date; let them (and the us that are a part of > them) deal with those works there. Let's specialize in materials that > won't be available on the US site for many years to come. > > And let's concentrate on works by authors who died more than 50 but > less than 71 years ago. This is, realistically, the body of work most > at risk of being lost to copyright extension in Canada. If we can get a > gazillion such works re-used as public domain works, it makes it > politically very difficult for the Guvmint to extend the life+term, at > least not retroactively. > > So: on the content side, our major content providers should focus (not > exclusively, but consciously focus) on post-1923 works by authors who > died from 1934 to 1954. Next year we move the death dates up a year, > and so on, and so on. > > >

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Re: Some humble suggestions... Re: [PGCanada] Re: PG-Canada / List of tasks to do
by Wallace J.McLean 28 Jan '05

28 Jan '05

----- Original Message ----- From: Jon Noring <jon(a)noring.name> Date: Thursday, January 27, 2005 9:10 pm Subject: Re: Some humble suggestions... Re: [PGCanada] Re: PG-Canada / List of tasks to do > Laugh. I live in Salt Lake City, and am an avid amateur genealogist. > I often do research in the Family History Library downtown. (I am NOT > LDS.) I'm a recovering one. Genealogist, that is, not LDS. I can probably recruit 100 volunteers if we can start getting into things like county histories and the amazing corpus of genealogical works that have come out of Quebec over the past century. > > Again, provisional publication of the scans could help > accelerate and > > distribute that process. > > Certainly. Placing the scans online (which I assume is what you mean > by "publication") certainly *requires* that cataloging records be > first generated from them, as well as copyright clearance. Copyright clearance, yes; full cataloguing information can follow. Again, making the scans provisionally available can help with that process, too, giving cataloguers more information to go on.

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Re: Some humble suggestions... Re: [PGCanada] Re: PG-Canada / List of tasks to do
by Wallace J.McLean 28 Jan '05

28 Jan '05

----- Original Message ----- From: Jon Noring <jon(a)noring.name> Date: Thursday, January 27, 2005 7:44 pm Subject: Some humble suggestions... Re: [PGCanada] Re: PG-Canada / List of tasks to do > and a level of autonomy with the other groups. The three are: 0) Distributed pre-scanning. This would be semi-structured efforts to obtain ALL the public-domain content in a given area of interest (e.g., every PD book about Cape Breton; 18th-century imprints; imprints in Aboriginal languages; etc., etc.) > 1) Scanning Question: As a bulwark against copyright term extension, as a way of providing at least provisional access to works, and as a way of delivering raw scans to those who will generate, clean and up-mark OCR, should we make the raw scans available online? (My answer: yes.) > 2) Cataloging and Copyright Clearance > 3) Conversion to structured digital text > > The first, scanning, can be done independently. It would seek out old > texts to scan which, if public domain, can be placed online. Ask for > donations (with a tax deduction to the donor) of old books which are > otherwise falling apart, chop them A lot of books we won't be able to get choppable copies of, and in a lot of cases, won't even need to: I think a key priority should be to beg, bum, borrow, or steal microform scanning capability, and start working our way through the CIHM back-catalogue, supplemented with proofraiding of the main existing Canadian image-libraries (ECO, BNQ, ourroots, etc.) > (In other messages, I referred to the scanning project as Distributed > Scanners.) We can further distribute that task through my "cells" idea, which takes the "team" concept over at PGDP one step further. Cells would be groups would would work more closely together to collect works in a geographical area (the Halifax cell), a given library (the Acadia University cell) or a given field of interest (the Canadian Incunabula cell; the LOTE cell; the Genealogy cell, etc.) They would bootstrap themselves into existence, both on our site, and through outside contacts, and make conscious efforts to assimilate everything and anything that interests them and is clearable. Think LDS genealogists meet the Borg. > The second, cataloging/copyright clearance, will take the scans which > have been done, and put together MARC (or equivalent) records for the > works (a lot of data can be taken from other libraries.) In addition, > the group can do the research on the copyright of the works, which of > course the cataloging information is important in the process. And > finally, this group can look over the scans to determine if any pages > are missing or badly scanned (a sort of QC function). Again, provisional publication of the scans could help accelerate and distribute that process.

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Re: [PGCanada] Re: PG-Canada / List of tasks to do
by Wallace J.McLean 28 Jan '05

28 Jan '05

----- Original Message ----- From: Andrew Sly <sly(a)victoria.tc.ca> Date: Thursday, January 27, 2005 6:49 pm Subject: [PGCanada] Re: PG-Canada / List of tasks to do > I'd suggest that getting content and finding Public domain books > is not something we need to worry about. Having enough interested > volunteers to help produce them will probably be more of a challenge. Having enough volunteers for the PP and later stages is the challenge; the pre-PP stages won't be a problem. > As we will be dealing probably largely with post-1922 books > I don't think it will be too hard to find books that are eligible > for PG Canada. I don't either, BUT it would be good to start taking advantage of the advantages in our law, where they exist, as soon as possible. If we don't start moving on that front, then legislative changes -- I always have to go back and strike the word "reform" -- may overtake us. > I admire the philosophy of letting volunteers do what they > are interested in, or even just happen to find copies of. > However, it couldn't hurt to have a list of requested books. Not at all; I plan on making one! > Also, if it helps, I've got a large list of Canadian authors > (or at least from Canadian referance sources) courtesy of > Philip at the New General Catalog of Old Books & Authors > http://www.kingkong.demon.co.uk/ngcoba/ngcoba.htm Ooohhh.... bookmarked!

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Re: [PGCanada] Prospective volunteers
by Wallace J.McLean 27 Jan '05

27 Jan '05

----- Original Message ----- From: Carlo Traverso <traverso(a)dm.unipi.it> Date: Wednesday, January 26, 2005 5:09 pm Subject: Re: [PGCanada] Prospective volunteers > Don't forget DP-EU, http://dp.rastko.net : they work with life+50 > rules, hence fit better with the needs of PG-CA. D'oh! Of course! How is DP-Eu processing life+ copyright clearances?

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Re: [PGCanada] Prospective volunteers
by Wallace J.McLean 26 Jan '05

26 Jan '05

----- Original Message ----- From: Andrew Sly <sly(a)victoria.tc.ca> Date: Wednesday, January 26, 2005 4:15 pm Subject: [PGCanada] Prospective volunteers > Are there any other suggestions from people here? I would suggest the following: 1) Anyone interested in volunteering, whether pre- or post-startup, should come forward, and state their interests and abilities to contribute. What do youse have in mind? Where can your talents best be employed? Who can and should you be collaborating with on those tasks? 2) Them that are able and willing to provide help on the extensive list of pre-startup tasks should organize themselves. Tallest to shortest? I don't know; let's just get tasks assigned and put workers to work on the things they can work on. 3) People who just have a vague sense that they would like to provide content, can email me, and we'll talk. There's already an informal content junta that's thinking ahead to this goal and considering possible projects that are clearable under Canadian law. Let's just not duplicate each other's work. 4) People in section (3) who haven't already done so, should sign up at www.pgdp.net and gain some practical experience in proofing and content- providing.

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Prospective volunteers
by Andrew Sly 26 Jan '05

26 Jan '05

I've exchanged emails with a couple of volunteers who have come to PG Canada asking "What can I do to help?" I would love it if anyone asking this could be directed to a place where they could actively contribute something. However, as a group, I don't believe we are at that stage yet. The main expectation seems to be that volunteers would like to be preparing books--which only makes sense. I can tell people inquiring that we won't we ready for new content for a couple of months, and suggesting some of the current issues that seem to need attention as things they might be able to help with. Are there any other suggestions from people here? Andrew

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Visions for Project Gutenberg of Canada
by Andrew Sly 21 Jan '05

21 Jan '05

Before returning to the details of what there is to be done in the short term, here's somthing of an overall view. Here is a list of visions of hopes for what PG Canada could be, as gathered from the volunteers working to bring it together, restated in my own words. Suggestions and corrections are welcome. Everyone involved is bringing his own ideas to the process, and so far, I believe these are not incompatible. We hope Project Gutenberg of Canada will be: --A repository for a wide range of Canadian literature and history texts, in multiple languages, as well as texts from many other parts of the world. --A fully integrated system for the production, storage, automatic conversion, and distribution of ebooks, utilizing xml. (Including machine translation to other languages and audio books.) --A living proof of the value of a vibrant public domain in Canada, that could be used as an example to argue against a possible term extension of copyright. --A project that will attract many volunteers, including a Canadian Distributed Proofing site, that will ensure it keeps growing. --An entity that will build alliances with other institutions and projects across the country that are interested in digitizing items in the Canadian public domain.

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