PG Monthly Newsletter: Part 2 (2003-12-03)

by Michael Cook on December 3, 2003
Newsletters

The Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter December 5, 2003
Books Readable By Both Humans and Computers For Since 1971

In this issue of the Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter Part 2:

1) Editorial
2) News
3) Radio Gutenberg update
4) Mailing list information


Hello,
Hey! Look, it's a desk! Wow! And I thought my computer was balanced on
a big pile of paper. I see someone's tided up too, oh, and are those
clean mugs. Gosh, even the strange looking thing in the fridge that we
had forgotten about has gone. Oh well, there goes the mold growing
experiment. Isn't it amazing what having someone else around can do
for the place.

Well, it is nice to be back after two weeks away, not that I actually
got to go anywhere (Boo!). I have been looking at a few newsletter
related things though, and hopefully, you will notice a few
improvements. Not least of which will be my nice new, never used (no
surprise there) spellchecker! I was looking through some old
newsletters to sort out some features for the website, and I think I
probably have the most forgiving audience ever. There are so many
spelling mistakes, and almost no-one corrects me. I think I could
probably count the emails on one finger in fact. I have to admit to some
surprise at this given the way almost every person in PG I have
contact with leaps in with corrections to mine, and indeed, everyone
elses mistakes at any given opportunity. I look forward to a rapid
improvement in my spelling starting roundabout now.Happy reading,

Alice

send email to the newsletter editor at: news@pglaf.org

Founding editor: Michael Hart hart@beryl.ils.edu
Newsletter editor: Alice Wood news@pglaf.org
Project Gutenberg CEO: Greg Newby gbnewby@pglaf.org

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Newsletter and mailing list subscriptions: http://gutenberg.net/subs.shtml
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2) News

       A Free Public Discussion at the Berkeley Public Library

		  Thursday December 11 2003 7:00 pm

	  THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE OF PROJECT GUTENBERG

A Presentation by Michael Hart, Founder of Project Gutenberg
and Greg Newby, Project Gutenberg CEO

Visit the Berkeley Public Library any time during the week of December
8 to pick up a free CD containing nearly 3,500 of the Project
Gutenberg eBooks, or a DVD with nearly 9,400.  Make copies, and
help spread free literature!

Prof. Hart will present a perspective of the decade it took to move
from 100 eBooks on this date in 1993 to over 100 times as many today,
and the hopes to reach ONE MILLION eBooks a decade or so from now.
Furthermore, he will outline how each of us can help build such a
worldwide public eLibrary.

Come hear how you can get your own library of 10,000 eBooks
on your computer, and how free eBooks can help change the world!

This is the 33rd year Project Gutenberg eBooks have been available
on the Internet and they can always be downloaded free of charge
from hundreds of sites around the world.  Prof. Hart hopes that in
another 33 years nearly any public domain work requested can be made
available, including books, newspapers, magazines, music, paintings,
sculpture [including 3-D] and all other forms of media.

The premise on which Michael Hart based Project Gutenberg was:

"Anything that can be put into a computer can be reproduced indefinitely."

He calls this "Replicator Technology".

The concept of Replicator Technology is simple; once these items are stored
in a computer, then any number of copies can and will be made available.
Everyone in the world can have as many copies as they want.  Even space
travellers, such as NASA Astronaut Shannon Lucid, have taken Project
Gutenberg CDs on record breaking journeys.

Project Gutenberg now has over 10,000 eBooks online at gutenberg.net

Prof. Hart can be contacted directly at:  hart@pobox.com

                    -------------------

Newletter Changes and Website Changes

Following my two weeks leave, where I seem to have done even more work
than normal, you should notice a few changes around the place to
improve our service. One of them you won't notice unless I tell you
and that is the automation of our email newsletters. Before almost everything
on the newsletter was done by a human, now hopefully only the article
writing will be (although one of our correspondents has asked for an
article writing machine in their Christmas present list), this means
that you should get your newsletter at the same time each week. What
thia should also mean is that as we will have more time to spend on
them, the article writing quality should be more consistent.

The other change is to the newsletter website, which while still not
quite there, has filled out dramatically over the last few days. Every
feature the newsletter has carried during my editorship is now up
there, along with the reviews and other articles of interest. I hope
to get the last few bells and whistles sorted during this week so it's
all bright and shiny for December 10th.

Alice

                    -------------------

Other news items this week

PG gains a new mirror site. 

Welcome to our newest mirror:  http://www.sakoman.net/gutenberg
Located in San Jose, California.

Thanks to Steve Sakoman.

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etext00, etc.)


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3) Radio Gutenberg Update

Radio Gutenberg Update

http://www.radio-gutenberg.org

channel 1 - Sherlock Holmes "The Sign of Four"
channel 2 - Robert Sheckley's "Bad Medicine"

Both are high quality live readings from the collection.

Jon and I are working on a new service for Project Gutenberg
to create an audio book on demand from any of the 10,000+
books in the collection.  This service will be available at
http://www.radio-gutenberg.org shortly.

Anyone needing an audio book of a gutenberg book will be able to
create it for themselves on the web, right when they have the need
for it.

Mike E

                    -------------------

Distributed Proofreaders Update

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Improved Service

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{Note to the unwary: this is an example.}

      34 NEW ETEXTS FROM PROJECT GUTENBERG US
A Complete Grammar of Esperanto, by Ivy Kellerman  Mar 2005[esperxxx.xxx]7787

The Female Gamester, by Gorges Edmond Howard       Apr 2005[fmgstxxx.xxx]7840
[Subtitle: A Tragedy]

A Primary Reader, by E. Louise Smythe              Apr 2005[preadxxx.xxx]7841
[Also posted: illustrated HTML, zipped only - pread10h.zip]

The Rise of Iskander, by Benjamin Disraeli         Apr 2005[?riskxxx.xxx]7842
[7-bit version with non-accented characters in 7risk10.txt and 7risk10.zip]
[8-bit version with accented characters in 8risk10.txt and 8risk10.zip]
[rtf version with accented characters in 8risk10r.rtf and 8risk10r.zip]
[rtf version has numbered paragraphs; txt version has no paragraph numbers]


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pgmonthly_2003_12_03_part_2.txt

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