The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter January 21, 2004
eBooks Readable By Both Humans and Computers For Since 1971
Part 1
In this week's Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter:
1) Editorial
2) News and Comment
3) Notes and Queries, Reviews and Features
4) Mailing list information
Editorial
Hello,
After last weeks new and exciting happenings are you getting a week
off? No. Absolutely not. In fact, if you have a spare five minutes you
might want to go on over to DP-EU, ah yes, here we go for possible
world domination. You have been warned!
Happy reading,
Alice
Send feedback and suggestions to the newsletter editor at: news@pglaf.org
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Newsletter editor: Alice Wood news@pglaf.org
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2) News and Comment
Major news this week
Announcing Distributed Proofreaders Europe
http://www.rastko.net/dp/default.php
This is the test site of Distributed Proofreaders Europe, which is a
service of Project Gutenberg Europe, Project Rastko, and the Global
Translation Project.
These are the words that greet all visitors to the newest part of the
Project Gutenberg / Distributed Proofreaders family. This newest
member is also turning into quite a unifying force behind the scenes
with two (so far) other volunteer projects joining forces with Project
Rastko to develop a really far reaching DP-EU. The main focus of
proofing at the moment is team based, the hope is the national and
special teams will adopt various books going throught the site. By
April they hope to have localization in 12 languages and dialects
finished, with 30 national/language teams formed. Then by the end of
December 2005: Localization in 60 languages and dialects, with the
existence of 60+ national/language teams. DP-EU could be the first
major Project Gutenberg's breakout from the primarily English speaking
area that has so far been PG history.
We include below a couple of pints from the DP-EU site, and we would
encourage readers to take a look at our newest project and gve them
our full support.
"Project Rastko - Internet Library of Serb Culture" is a non-profit
and non-governmental publishing, cultural and educational project
established in 1997 as a part of pan-regional Balkans Cultural Network
Initiative.
Project Rastko (DP-EU) is forming a coalition of European e-libraries
in order to contribute all local public domain digital production to
PG. Every region will have its local authorized e-library (node) which
will be local service of continental and global network. Thus, the
eventual organization will be of the type (Country, Continent, Globe)
or, for example, PG (France)-PG EU-PG. While the original Project
Gutenberg (and Distributed Proofreaders) primarily serviced the (world
wide) English diaspora, Europe, with its many languages, requires an
even greater distribution network. Many languages are primarily
located in their 'home' countries. Both the need for the production of
these languages, and the resources for acquiring them (content,
proofers) will be equally localized. It is important to note, though,
that the effort is fully international. Membership in any Project
Gutenburg, or any Distributed Proofreaders, is membership in all.
Mentions in dispatches
This piece comes to us via BBCWorld this week, where BBC presenter
Kate Russell highlighted both ibiblio and Project Gutenberg.
http://bbcworld.com/content/template_clickonline.asp?pageid=666&co_pageid=6
Webscape
January 15th 2004
Kate Russell gives us a guide to the sites in her Favourites folder.
There is no doubt that the internet is absolutely bursting at the seams
with information, so it's hardly surprising that more and more websites
are being built to help you find your way around it. Ibiblio describes
itself as an online library and digital archive, and it claims to be home
to one of the largest 'collections of collections' on the world wide web.
Not having seen every website on the internet personally, I can't validate
that claim, but you only have to look at the collection index to realise
that it's certainly vast enough to be a serious contender. Broken down
into easily digestible categories such as Arts & Recreation, Languages,
and Religion & Theology, you can click your way through to a powerhouse of
information on pretty much any subject you'd care to think of and, unlike
a traditional library, there's far more than just pages of text hidden
away in these archives. For example, within the Asian History subsection
you can access a page full of audio samples taken from traditional
Nepalese music, to really give you a flavour of the culture. Or why not
visit the Project Gutenberg pages to download classic literature in
digital form, either as a plain text file or as an audio file read out by
a synthesised voice. It might sound a bit strange hearing Shakespeare's "A
Midsummer's Nights Dream" spoken in this toneless computerised voice, but
as a resource for the visually impaired it could prove invaluable.
To be found in this weeks ebooklistings this week
The book with the longest subtitle ever!
A Set of Rogues, by Frank Barrett 10727
[Subtitle: Namely Christopher Sutton, John Dawson, the Senor Don Sanches
del Castillo de Castelana and Moll Dawson. Their Wicked Conspiracy, and a
True Account of their Travels and Adventures. The marriage of Moll Dawson
by sinful means to a worthy gentleman of merit; her fall, remorse and
great sorrow; her second expedition with her former roguish companions
into strange places. Her atonement to Mr. Richard Godwin (whereby she
renders up all she ever had of him and more) and selling of herself to
Algerine pirates and going into Barbary a slave; together with the
tribulations of those who led her to wrong doing, and many other
surprising things now disclosed for the first time as the faithful
confession of Christopher Sutton. ]
[Link: http://www.gutenberg.net/1/0/7/2/10727 ]
The Picture Alphabet, by Oliver Spafford 10742
[A book from which children might learn the alphabet. Each letter is
accompanied by an illustration, such as a cat for "C." I wonder if
children in 1850 were familiar with a nylghau for "N," ibex for "I," or
urus for "U." Also, under the letter "X" the author states, "No word in
the English language begins with this letter."]
[Link: http://www.gutenberg.net/1/0/7/4/10742 ]
The Circus Procession, by Unknown 10749
[This is without doubt the most fascinating book that's passed through my
hands during my career at PG. It's a children's book about a circus parade,
with
gorgeous illustrations. But what makes it so unusual is the way it was put
together (both the original and the html). The original book consisted of 4
lines of verse at the bottom of colored illustrations of the circus procession.
The leaves were mounted on boards and joined together in an accordion-fold
format which, fully extended, was 372 cm (roughly 12 feet) in length. Thus, the
html version is to be scrolled horizontally, so that it will be viewed as was
the original.]
[Files: 10749.txt; 10749.zip; 10749-h.htm; 10749-h.zip]
All available formats and their zipped files will be found at:
http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/0/7/4/10749
Thanks to Ben Courtney and his associates at DP for giving us this book, which
surely is one of the treasures of our collection.
Joe
For futher details on this book see below.
Other news this week
Help Beta Test A New Website At projectgutenberg.info
This is up and running now, but will change during the month.
Please email hart@pobox.com with your suggestions and comments
------------
If anyone would like to help out at newsletter towers by keeping the
website up to date for us, please email the newsletter team. Thanks to
Michael Dyck's brilliant efforts it's really simple, I am just having
trouble keeping up! Thanks - Alice
------------
Latest Statistics
11043 Total 01/21/04 Week #2 (15/344)
44 New This Week
92 New Last Week
68.00 Weekly Average
136 New This Month
136 New This Year
9.07 Average per day this year
2363 Projected Total for this year
75 New this week last year (01/15/03)
287 New this month last year (Jan)
101 New this year last year (2003)
$ 0.91 Trillion dollar cost/book
$ 1.46 Trillion dollar cost/book last year
6844 Etexts This Week Last Year
2 Production Weeks this Year 50 to go.
15 Production Days this Year 344 to go.
1 Production Months this Year
2271 eBooks in last 6 months (07/23/03 - 01/21/04) 26 weeks (29 - 2)
12.55 Daily Average for the last 6 months (181 production days)
1928 eBooks in the prior 6 months (01/15/03 - 07/16/03) 26 weeks (2 - 28)
10.59 Daily Average for the prior 6 months (182 production days)
5432 eBooks in the last 18 months (07/24/02 - 01/21/04) 78 weeks (29 - 2)
Radio Gutenberg Update
www.gutenberg.net/audio
channel 1 - Sherlock Holmes "The Sign of Four"
channel 2 - Robert Sheckley's "Bad Medicine"
Both are high quality live readings from the collection.
Testing of Radio Gutenberg audio books on demand is currently taking
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3) Notes and Queries, Reviews and Features
The Circus Procession, by Unknown 10749
[This is without doubt the most fascinating book that's passed through my
hands during my career at PG. It's a children's book about a circus parade,
with gorgeous illustrations. But what makes it so unusual is the way it was put
together (both the original and the html). The original book consisted of 4
lines of verse at the bottom of colored illustrations of the circus procession.
The leaves were mounted on boards and joined together in an accordion-fold
format which, fully extended, was 372 cm (roughly 12 feet) in length. Thus, the
html version is to be scrolled horizontally, so that it will be viewed as was
the original.]
[Files: 10749.txt; 10749.zip; 10749-h.htm; 10749-h.zip]
Now with a posting note like this, how can the newsletter editor
refuse to take a look. The HTML version is well worth a look with some
exquisite illustrations, and amazing colours given the publishing date
is 1888. IT's also interesting to note the difference between this and
the pictures of the circus that we are all familiar with, clowns, but
of course no car to fall apart. No trapeze artists, but far more
emphasis on the exotic animals. I think this would still make a
fantastic childrens' book even now. Thoroughly recommended.
Alice
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Credits
Thanks this week to Brett and George for the numbers and the
booklists. Thierry, Greg, Michael and Larry Wall. Entertainment for
the workers provided as usual by BBC 6Music and Andrew Collins, thank
you to Andrew for mentioning us on the radio last Wednesday.
pgweekly_2004_01_21_part_1.txt
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