The Chinese collection of eBooks at Project Gutenberg has been increasing steadily and there are now over 300 titles in the archive. The PG Chinese eBook collection has now taken over 5th place in the language lists (excluding English.) Congratulations to everyone involved in producing this collection.
/The Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter, May 21, 2008/
e-Books Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since 1971
55 Months to The End of the World Via Mayan Calendaring!
This leaves 4 7/12 years, 18 1/3 seasons, or 55 months.
Not to worry. I will still make predictions further on.
Chinese Moves Up!
Please note the number of our original Project Gutenberg
eBooks in Chinese has moved over 300 books, and thus has
now taken over the 5th place of books in languages other
than English. List of Top 10 or so is below.
Spanish and Russian
We need to make a concerted effort to bring more eBooks,
of all kinds, to our readers of Spanish and Russian.
Please contact hart at pglaf.org
Notes About a Project Dedicated to Benjamin Franklin
"Ben & Verse"
("Is Ben Franklin Cursed? His Prose Has Been Versed")
is made of quotes?and rewrites of Ben Franklin's prose
aphorisms in up-to-date verse. Arranged by?subject,
"Ben & Verse" can introduce?children and playful adults
to experiences stored in "Poor Richard's Almanac."
?
>From time to time, the author, John D. McCall adds
quotations and verses. For the latest edition, click
www.benandverse.com/poorben/bentogoload.htm
For another route to the latest edition, please go to
www.benandverse.com
Then, first click Ben Franklin's kite
to reach the monthly issue, and then click
"Ben to Go!"
?
Happy Reading From the Inventor of Bifocals, etc!
HEADLINE NEWS
As of today: May 21, 2008: "Original Project Gutenberg
eBook" site totals have reached 28,000, details below.
Please do not forget the 1600+ from PG of Australia, the
~500 from PG Europe, and the ~100 from PG Canada, with a
detailed list included below. Not to mention the sites:
http://www.gutenberg.cc with 75,000+ eBooks, and Project
Runeberg with eBooks in the Scandinavian languages.
Please note: the figures presented here are usually the
more conservative figures people have presented, but the
date of our eBook #25,000 was said to have been slightly
earlier than reported. Personally, I would prefer to be
a little cautious about reporting the numbers of eBooks,
but if anyone would like to help us with the accounting,
that would be GRRRREAT!!!
As we have seen, our current batch of volunteers for the
Project Gutenberg Newsletters is now down to about zero,
so Greg Newby, PG CEO and I are working up a revival; so
if you would like to contribute or take over, email us.
I will continue to create The Monthly Newsletter, and to
get it out around the 21st of each month, counting down,
month by month, to the end of the Mayan calendar date of
December 21, 2012.
Note: There won't be any new postings from PG Australia
for the rest of April, May, and possibly June.
Portable Reading offers a service to read books from a
library of over 20,000 Gutenberg titles in dozens of
languages.? Readers can upload their own book and share it
with friends.? They can also communicate with each other
and with authors by writing reviews and annotating
individual pages with notes.? The reading interface is
customizable by font size, type, background color, etc.
Portable Reading is currently available on the iPhone, the
iPod Touch, and on Facebook.? Many more mobile devices are
coming soon.
Try Portable Reading on the iPhone and iPod Touch:?
http://www.textonphone.com
Try Portable Reading on Facebook:?
http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?
id=20655241480&ref=s
Requesting A Third Time!
If there are any experts out there in Perl or Excel, you
would be greatly appreciated in helping us with numbers;
daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. We can provide data,
and hopefully you can provide us with weekly, monthly or
yearly totals for these Newsletters.
If you would like a complete listing of each book title,
and the accompanying data, we do have a daily listing to
subscribe to, which also includes additional data on the
book as it is uploaded for final preparation.
Requesting A Second Time
I need someone who can do PowerPoint illustrations.
One in particular, building a 3-D box of 1,000 dominoes.
In addition, I will provide the PG Canada Newsletter and
totals from PG of Australia, Europe, PrePrints, etc.
These totals do NOT include 75,000+ at:
http://www.gutenberg.cc
Here is the output for the current week:
Subject: Yet Another Progress Report
day | cnt
----------------+-----
Wed 2008-05-14 | 9
Thu 2008-05-15 | 10
Fri 2008-05-16 | 14
Sat 2008-05-17 | 12
Sun 2008-05-18 | 9
Mon 2008-05-19 | 13
Tue 2008-05-20 | 17
Thanks to Marcello Perathoner!
Current Totals
25,435 Project Gutenberg Under US Copyright Law
1,624 Project Gutenberg Of Australia +0 [on break]
497 Project Gutenberg of Europe +3
119 Project Gutenberg of Canada +9 [< May 12]
387 Project Gutenberg PrePrints +0
======
28,062 Grand Total
[About as many as the average public library]
eustats
preprints
PG Europe will be posting their eBook #500 very soon!
PG Australia posted their eBook #1600 on Feb. 8, 2008
PG Canada posted their eBook #100 on March 25, 2008
PG US posted their eBook #25,000 on April 20, 2008
Note: PG Canada includes English, French, and Italian.
Top Language Totals from
http://www.gutenberg.org
21724 English en
1183 French fr
533 German de
438 Finnish fi
336 Dutch nl
310 Chinese zh
228 Portuguese pt
183 Spanish es
147 Italian it
///
Here is how we ended 2007
The combined PG projects had produced a total of 26,161
titles.
The most number of books posted...
...in one day was 65 on the 26th December
...in one week was 151 in Week 18 (week ending 9th May)
...in one month was 477 in November
We averaged
338 per month
78 per week
11.13 per day
99 titles had been REposted to the new filing system,
bringing us almost to the 2,000 mark.
Here is a small selection of project milestones;
TOTAL "Original Project Gutenberg eBooks"
* 28,000 ~~ 2008/05/16 About the number of books in
* 27,500 on 2008/04/05 the average US public library
* 27,000 ~~ 2008/02/29*
* 26,500 on 2008/01/26
* 26,000 on 2007/12/24
* 25,000 on 2007/10/12
* 24,000 on 2007/07/10
* 23,000 on 2007/04/15
Under US Copyright Law
* 25,500 ~~ 2008/05/27
* 25,000 on 2008/03/20
* 24,000 on 2007/12/27
* 22,500 on 2007/09/09
PG-AU
* 1,600 on 2008/02/08
* 1,500 on 2007/04/07
PG Canada
* 100 on 2008/03/25
* 110 on 2008/04/17
Back in January we mentioned that there was going to be a Newsletter Team. Unfortunately this will now not happen.
Project Gutenberg is therefore putting forward a request for volunteers to help out with the weekly newsletter. Everyone is welcome to participate no matter what your background.
Please use our Contact page and let us know your interest. All messages will be forwarded directly to Michael Hart.
Portable Reading offers a service to read books from a library of over 20,000 Gutenberg titles in dozens of languages. Readers can upload their own book and share it with friends. They can also communicate with each other and with authors by writing reviews and annotating individual pages with notes. The reading interface is customizable by font size, type, background color, etc.Portable Reading is currently available on the Apple iPhone, iPod Touch, and on Facebook. Many more mobile devices are coming soon.
If there are any experts out there in Perl or Excel, you would be greatly appreciated in helping us with PG statistical numbers; daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. We can provide data, and hopefully you can provide us with weekly, monthly or yearly totals for the Newsletters.
If you would like a complete listing of each book title, and the accompanying data, we do have a daily listing to subscribe to, which also includes additional data on the book as it is uploaded for final preparation.
The Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter, April 21, 2008
e-Books Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since 1971
56 Months to The End of the World Via Mayan Calendaring!
This leaves 4 2/3 years, 18 2/3 seasons, or 56 months...
Not to worry. I will still make predictions further on.
HEADLINE NEWS
As of today, April 21, 2008, original "Project Gutenberg
eBook" site totals have reached 25,000, having passed on
from 24,998 in the period since yesterday's totals for a
new total of 25,004.
eBook #25,000 is:
English Book Collectors, by William Younger Fletcher
25000
[Editor: Alfred Pollard]
[Link: http://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/0/0/25000 ]
[Files: 25000.txt; 25000-8.txt; 25000-h.htm]
Thanks to Suzanne Lybarger, Jane Hyland, Brian Janes and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net
Please do not forget the 1600+ from PG of Australia, the
~500 from PG Europe, and the ~100 from PG Canada, with a
detailed list included below.
Exact figures follow the rest of the Newsletter.
As we have seen, our current batch of volunteers for the
Project Gutenberg Newsletters is now down to about zero,
so Greg Newby, PG CEO, and I are working up a revival so
if you would like to contribute or take over, email us.
I will continue to create The Monthly Newsletter, and to
get it out around the 21st of each month, counting down,
month by month, to the end of the Mayan calendar date of
December 21, 2012.
Note: There won't be any new postings from PG Australia
for the rest of April, May, and possibly June.
Portable Reading offers a service to read books from a
library of over 20,000 Gutenberg titles in dozens of
languages.? Readers can upload their own book and share it
with friends.? They can also communicate with each other
and with authors by writing reviews and annotating
individual pages with notes.? The reading interface is
customizable by font size, type, background color, etc.
Portable Reading is currently available on the iPhone, the
iPod Touch, and on Facebook.? Many more mobile devices are
coming soon.
Try Portable Reading on the iPhone and iPod Touch:?
http://www.textonphone.com
Try Portable Reading on Facebook:?
http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=20655241480&ref=s
Second Request!
If there are any experts out there in Perl or Excel, you
would be greatly appreciated in helping us with numbers;
daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. We can provide data,
and hopefully you can provide us with weekly, monthly or
yearly totals for these Newsletters.
If you would like a complete listing of each book title,
and the accompanying data, we do have a daily listing to
subscribe to, which also includes additional data on the
book as it is uploaded for final preparation.
First Request
I need someone who can do PowerPoint illustrations.
One in particular, building a 3-D box of 1,000 dominoes.
In addition, I will provide the PG Canada Newsletter and
totals from PG of Australia, Europe, PrePrints, etc.
These totals do NOT include 75,000+ at:
http://www.gutenberg.cc
Here is the output for the current week:
day | cnt
----------------+-----
Mon 2008-04-14 | 5
Tue 2008-04-15 | 5
Wed 2008-04-16 | 4
Thu 2008-04-17 | 5
Fri 2008-04-18 | 12
Sat 2008-04-19 | 11
Sun 2008-04-20 | 2
[partial day]
Current Totals
25,004 Project Gutenberg Under US Copyright Law
1,624 Project Gutenberg Of Australia +6
494 Project Gutenberg of Europe +3
110 Project Gutenberg of Canada +12
387 Project Gutenberg PrePrints +0
======
27,619 Grand Total
[About as many as the average public library]
PG Australia posted their eBook #1600 on Feb. 8, 2008
PG Canada posted their eBook #100 on March 25, 2008
PG US posted their eBook #25,000 on April 20, 2008
Note: PG Canada includes English, French, and Italian.
Top Language Totals
21475 English en
1168 French fr
530 German de
433 Finnish fi
326 Dutch nl
217 Portuguese pt
196 Chinese zh
180 Spanish es
128 Italian it
55 Latin la
54 Tagalog tl
45 Esperanto eo
40 Swedish sv
20 Danish da
19 Catalan ca
10 Welsh cy
10 Norwegian no
7 Russian ru
7 Icelandic is
7 Hungarian hu
6 Middle English enm
6 Greek el
6 Bulgarian bg
///
Here is how we ended 2007
The combined PG projects have now produced a total of 26,161 titles.
The most number of books posted...
...in one day was 65 on the 26th December
...in one week was 151 in Week 18 (week ending 9th May)
...in one month was 477 in November
We averaged 338 books per month, 78 per week and 11.13 per day.
99 titles have been REposted to the new filing system, bringing us
almost to the 2,000 mark.
Here is a small selection of project milestones;
TOTAL Project Gutenberg e-Texts
* 27,500 ~~ 2008/04/05
* 26,500 on 2008/01/26
* 26,000 on 2007/12/24
* 25,000 on 2007/10/12
* 24,000 on 2007/07/10
* 23,000 on 2007/04/15
PG-US
* 25,000 on 2008/03/20
* 24,000 on 2007/12/27
* 22,500 on 2007/09/09
PG-AU
* 1,600 on 2008/02/08
* 1,500 on 2007/04/07
PG Canada
* 100 on 2008/03/25
* 110 on 2008/04/17
In 1985 when Gary Kildall, IBM’s first choice before Bill Gates to design their PC’s operating system a few years earlier, came out with the first electronic encyclopedia, who would figure it would be only a quarter of a century before print encyclopedias faded from the limelight to join vinyl records and dinosaurs?
$999 would buy you an external Sony CD drive and Grolier’s CD– pretty much the same price as the paper encyclopedias, but with the option of putting any number of CDs in the drive.
This was only a year after the famous “1984” Super Bowl ad that ran only once and changed Super Bowl ads forever.
It was only a year after IBM offered the AT.
It’s all over for those hefty paper encyclopedias.
No less an authority than The New York Times tells us it is time to “Start Writing the Eulogies for Print Encyclopedias,” that it is all over other than rolling out the last few editions of some last few hard-boiled Luddites who insist on paper encyclopedias, at a price that could easily buy you a decent used car.
$1500 would buy you an encyclopedia when I was a kid, and that’s not so much less than we paid for our first brand new $2100 car.
Obviously this pricing has taken a beating to remain competitive with electronic resources, as I just clicked on an ad for a 2007 Britannica, there doesn’t seem to be a 2008, and got three kinds labeled as follows:
I recently updated my Future History: Spacefaring Societies, Resources and Logistics essay, that expands on the Afterwords and References chapters in my e-novel ‘The Universe–or Nothing.’ The novel (2006) is archived in the Project Gutenberg Library Archive Foundation (PGLAF) from where it may be freely downloaded at: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/18257
The essay (about 8,000 words and more than 20 active links to supporting data) may be freely downloaded at: http://scribe1917x.livejournal.com/4923.html
The novel and the follow-on essay speculate on a possible far-stretching future for humankind from realities of this era.
We’ve just posted the 100th eBook. It’s from 1904, seems not to have been reprinted, and is a very interesting account of Toronto’s legal establishment in the 19th century: it’s a rather spectacular addition to the collection. Here’s the description from the website:
2008/03/25: As our 100th eBook, we’ve chosen this beautifully illustrated history of Toronto’s lawyers and judiciary – A true rarity and a delight to read, packed with anecdotes. You may end up thinking that the history of Toronto is the history of its lawyers!