Gutenberg projekt - novinky a dalsi plany

[Vladimir Vrabec]

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Date:         Wed, 22 Jun 94 15:27:34 CDT
From: "Michael S. Hart" <HART at VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU>
Subject:      Special Gutenberg Releases
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.interpedia

The following two pages contain news of two special Project Gutenberg
releases for the 4th of July, and also my [shorter] report on how the
year is going at Project Gutenberg.

Jul 1994 The Autobiography of Ben Franklin                 [bfaut10x.xxx] 148
Jul 1994 Common Sense by Thomas Paine                      [comsn10x.xxx] 147
  plus
Jul 1994 A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett      [lprss10x.xxx] 146
Jul 1994 Middlemarch by George Eliot [as per PBS series]   [mdmar10x.xxx] 145
Jul 1994 The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf                  [voout10x.xxx] 144

*

On approximately the first day of summer and winter I post this
short report on how things are progressing at Project Gutenberg
for the upcoming year.  There is approximately one page of 1994
information, and one page for 1995 on, a total of two pages.

1994:  More and more people are trying to get Project Gutenberg
to foster particular formats for their own favorite pieces of a
wide variety of hardware and software; as always my response is
what it must be to maintain a worldwide distribution network:
Project Gutenberg will continue to create files in only PVASCII
[Plain Vanilla ASCII] so these file can be used by any software
on any computer.  Thus these files end each line with a cr/lf--
which allows DOS, Mac and Unix people to each see the files tho
Unix only requires the lf, and Macs only require the cr.  These
are abbreviations for line feed and carriage return.

Since we go to great lengths to choose the places our lines end
we encourage people not to change the margins, but should it be
their choice, elimination of the extra character only takes one
second on most occasions.  However, we DO ask that when you may
redistribute the files, that they have NOT been changed.  For a
friend with the same hardware or software, that is fine but NOT
for general redistribution.

We have a Mac Team and a Unix Team available for those who have
questions about this.

*

Graphics files:  in our process of scanning, we usually keep no
graphics files:  they are created and deleted in the process of
OCR [Optical Character Recognition], since these files are many
times larger than the corresponding PVASCII file though PVASCII
files of course have no pictures other than those made with the
standard characters.  For example, the TIFF file of a page will
usually be some 20 times larger than the PVASCII file.

Since we are planning many files of 5 or 10 meg, it would be an
extraordinary job to keep graphics files of those pages too; in
a few more years I am sure this will be much more easily done--
but for now we don't have the space or the time to do this. . .
unless we get outside help.  We have had a handful of notes for
keeping these graphics files, but not enough support to do it--
if you would like these files saved, better act now, we are not
going to be able to keep them much longer on our own.

*

This is true of all graphics files; we are experimenting on the
WWW, Mosaic, etc., and will continue to do so, even on the full
motion picture front, as we did with the Lunar Landing movie.

However, these are purely experimental and not fully supported.

*

Music:  we are continuing our work on the creation of music for
a single CDROM that will contain 5,000 times as much music as a
single MIDI file of Beethoven's 5th Symphony.  If you have MIDI
interests, please let us know.

*

1995:  In January of 1995 we are scheduled to release a Project
Gutenberg Etext Encyclopedia, which I hope will be the first of
many encyclopedias, dictionaries, and general reference books.

>From January 1995 to January 1996 we hope to release 200 books,
musical works, and other items of general interest.

1995 is the 100th Anniversary of the Carnegie Public Libraries,
which was the beginning of the public library system as we know
it today in the United States.  Your contributions to some sort
of celebration will be most welcome.

1996 will be the 25th Anniversary of Project Gutenberg, as 1971
saw our first posting:  The US Declaration of Independence.  In
this 25th year we hope to find additional support from colleges
and universities around the world as we will be approaching our
1,000th Etext by the end of that year, and would like to have a
wide base of support outside Illinois and the United States.

*

We thank you for your continued support and appreciation of our
work; your notes of support, as well as your labors of love and
financial support are GREATLY APPRECIATED.


Thanks,

=============================================

Michael S. Hart, Professor of Electronic Text
Executive Director of Project Gutenberg Etext
Illinois Benedictine College, Lisle, IL 60532
No official connection to U of Illinois--UIUC
hart at uiucvmd.bitnet and hart at vmd.cso.uiuc.edu

If I don't answer in two days, please resend.
It usually means I did not get/see your note.
General queries to: dircompg at ux1.cso.uiuc.edu
[Project Gutenberg Director of Communication]
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