March 26, 2010
From DPCanadaWiki
Volume 3, Issue #60--March 26, 2010
(Full listing of previous issues is available at DPC Newsletters)
Simon Says...
We really do need some help to tackle the large number of projects ready for PP--any willing PPers out there? I will be reminding some members who have had PP projects out for many months that we need at least some feedback on progress. I expect that some of these folks will turn out to have become "dormant", so some of these projects will be recalled, making the PP backlog even more acute.
I met on the 24th with the CEO and senior staff of the Stouffville Public Library about our potential "Magic" digitization project. (Stouffville is the little town right next door to my residence hamlet Dickson Hill. I think it's great that I live in a place with the same name as a mythical holodeck character in a Star Trek: Next Generation episode. Remember, Jean-Luc Picard likes to read detective novels and assumes the role of Dickson Hill in the holodeck.)
The Library people are very excited about our offer to turn their special collection on Magic into e-books. They have hundreds of books, pamphlets, catalogs, flyers, posters and periodicals on the subject--most of them will likely pass Canadian copyright clearances. We would post the finished works to PGC, our own soon-to-come display site, and to the Library's website. It's also possible that this project will be the beginning of a cooperative relationship with the Province's "Knowledge Ontario" archive of artifacts and documents. I'm meeting with them next week. I see the project as both a fascinating new source of books on a subject we don't often see, and a wonderful chance to increase our "exposure" to the world.
This project will also introduce us to a new specialty/task that eventually we'll need to undertake for our display site--cataloguing and metadata. So there'll be some new learning and skills to absorb. We will need to identify and apply "tags" to each project to help readers to find the e-book amongst the large number of other books on the hosting websites. The Library staff will attach MARC index cards to each book, but we need to flip through each finished book and list the main subjects, key ideas and sub-genres the book covers. This list will be appended to the text of the book, somewhat like a Transcriber's Note.
By the way, coachmike tells me that our display site will support "full word search"--every word in the text version will be a keyword. So a reader will be able to search for all books containing the word "aardvark", but not the word "paintball". The addition of metadata tags will make this search procedure even more powerful.
Anyone got any other ideas about how we could interact with other parts of the "world of books"?
Has anyone noticed an improvement in the "log-out constantly" problem? For my own part, I seem to be "logged in" all the time now, even when I leave the site for hours at a time. That is such a rare event, perhaps I just hadn't noticed it before.
I've just about finished the PPing of 2 more "Chronicles of Canada" volumes, so the number posted will take a jump in the next week--I think before I start any more, I'm going to do the "clean-up" I promised. Essentially, I'm going to visit all the posted volumes and make the styling a bit more uniform across the series (especially in the list of volumes, index formatting, and styling of headings).
Cheers, Simon
Hints and Tips
A tip submitted by rcool, one of our faithful newsletter readers:
- If you are proofing a book that's hard to make out (the scans that is), then try searching in Google for a unique phrase and sometimes you'll find a cleaner version in Google Books that is a big help!
Thanks, rcool. Google often allows one to search on the contents of a book though not always. Sometimes the The Internet Archive sites (aka TIA) have cleaner copies, too; though there one must do further searching to find the correct page.
Special Requests
Calling all CPs and PMs
De2164, our faithful PF who manages the P1: Waiting queue has an ongoing need for more projects. We've had some responses; more are welcome.
Any available PPers?
There are many available projects for PPers (with more every day)--there are now over 70 projects waiting for PPers.
Lots of choices depending on what you like:
- easy, average, hard;
- history, biography, fiction, humour (or is that "humor" :wink:), folklore, periodicals, science, military;
- most are in English, but there are several in Portuguese, one in German, one English with French.
Editorial
New "Magic" ÜberProject--Simple Simon's comments from the last issue and this one are certainly exciting. So all you "magic" lovers should get ready. If you know of anyone who likes magic and who are not members of DPC, be sure to let them know about this upcoming ÜberProject.
And if you want to be really involved with the project (prepping, PMing, PPing, managing the ÜberProject wikipage or any of the other tasks listed above), just send Simon a PM and let him know.
Membership numbers--We've over 850 members registered. We hope the newbies are finding projects that they like.
DPC 2010 New Year's Resolutions--Simon advises that we probably won't see the site code upgrade by the end of Q1 (just a few weeks away) so that's one resolution that we'll miss. However, on a brighter note, we've gotten started on the Q4 resolution for getting our "display site" organized.
Display Site--As mentioned in the Simon Says... for February 26, Simon has set up a forum to discuss the various aspects of the Display Site. Have you seen it yet? What do you think? We want to know.
Calling all Proofers--We have an ongoing need for getting projects into the formatting rounds. Maybe all proofers--especially P3s--could commit to doing a few more pages every week ... F1s don't have many projects to choose from and even F2 suffers occasionally. Foofers can help with proofing, too; especially if you are looking for a change of pace.
PLEASE NOTE--Update--The "new" FAQs and non-English Guidelines that you can access through the FAQ Central page either have been or are being revised to be truly DPC versions.
Formatting Guidelines--Simon advises that he should be able to release the revised set very soon; perhaps by the end of the month. At least, he's certainly going to try. Once that's done, we'll "retire" the older versions that are on our site.
Server and site issues--There's still the odd server problem that has continued, but hopefully those will be cleared up once the site code is upgraded.
ÜberProjects--see the updates below.
Revisions to Guidelines, FAQs and the DPC site code
Guideline Differences--Once we get our Proofreading and Formatting Guidelines updated to go along with our upcoming site code upgrade, we intend to produce a wikipage with the differences. We're working on the Guidelines updates at this time and we hope to produce the "differences" page shortly thereafter.
Upgraded DPC site code--There have been further delays so we won't see it before the end of Q1 ... but that's life, isn't it.
ÜberProject #1: Chronicles of Canada
There continue to be lots of spaces for volunteers to PM, PP and even CP. To see the current status of the volumes, check out the ÜberProject wiki page for The Chronicles of Canada here: http://www.pgdpcanada.net/wiki/index.php/The_Chronicles_of_Canada.
- De2164 and IonaV are prepping the rest of the volumes. Sufficient PMs have volunteered to handle all remaining volumes--we just need PPers, but the volumes can be picked up from the PP pool when they have completed the rounds unless there is a volume that a PPer really wants to do--in that case let the PM know sooner rather than later.
- We've arranged to get "mint condition" copies of the full set and so will be able to get good scans of all the maps and illustrations as well as picking up missing pages (if any). Thank you to hugger1935 for the use of the books.
- Volumes 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 19, 21, 25, 31 and 32 are available for, in or completed Post-Processing. There are several in New Project being prepared for the P1: Waiting queue with one or two yet to be prepped.
- PP standards have been set and the books do not have anything extremely difficult at all. Check the Chronicles wiki page for the PP standards. Some of the standards for PPing have been updated.
- Volumes 13, 17 and 24 are being done at DP-Int since the authors of these volumes are out of DPC's copyright purview. They will be posted to PG-Int in due time. For those that are interested, Volumes 17 & 24 are in the P3 waiting queue while Volume 13 is sitting in F2: Waiting.
- Nine volumes have been posted to PGC and/or PG-International:
- Volume 1: The Dawn of Canadian History, A Chronicle of Aboriginal Canada,
- Volume 2: The Mariner of St Malo: A Chronicle of the Voyages of Jacques Cartier,
- Volume 3: The Founder of New France, A Chronicle of Champlain,
- Volume 5: The Seigneurs of old Canada: A Chronicle of New World Feudalism,
- Volume 8: The Great Fortress: A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760,
- Volune 18: The 'Adventures of England on Hudson Bay', A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North,
- Volume 20: Adventurers of the Far North, A Chronicle of the Arctic Seas,
- Volume 27: The Winning of Popular Government: A Ahronicle of the Union of 1841, and
- Volume 29: The Day of Sir John MacDonald, A Chronicle of the Early Years of the Dominion.
ÜberProject #2: Jesuit Relations
Travels and Explorations of the Jesuit Missionaries in New France; 1610-1791
Vol. 65: Lower Canada, Mississippi Valley, 1696-1702, is in post processing. Simon advises that he has started on the PPing of this volume and says that it will probably be a slow task. There are experienced PPers of old French and Latin whom I'm sure that he will be using as resources. Wish him "good luck".
Vol. 66: Illinois, Louisiana, Iroquois, Lower Canada, 1702-1712, is in F2: Available. It is just like Vol. 65: strange characters, old style French spellings and accents, bits and pieces of other languages--lots of fun.
Vol. 67: Lower Canada, Abenakis, Louisiana; 1716- 1727 is in P3: Available. Lots of "fun" with strange characters, old style French spellings and accents, bits and pieces of other languages.
Vol. 68: Lower Canada, Crees, Louisiana; 1720-1736 is in P3: Available. Again, lots of "fun" with strange characters, old style French spellings and accents, bits and pieces of other languages.
Vol. 69: All Missions; 1710-1756 is in P1: Available. More of the same strange characters with Latin as well as old French spellings and English.
A set of standards has been determined and added to the Project Comments. An ÜberProject wiki page for Jesuit Relations has been created. It includes the basic instructions for proofing and formatting.
ÜberProject #3: Governor General's Award Books
Warmheart has created an ÜberProject page for this uberproject. The page looks very good and has lots of links. You can see the details of what she has completed to date here: http://www.pgdpcanada.net/wiki/index.php/Governor_General%27s_Literary_Awards Check it out, you might find something interesting there....
There are only a couple of books that are available since many of the authors are still alive--ah, well, we'll get them eventually. :)
ÜberProject #4: Periodicals
Graham's Magazine is the first part of our ongoing periodicals ÜberProject. Eleven of the first year's volumes have been posted to PG. The last issue is in post-processing. The second year has started now with four in the proofing or formatting rounds, one waiting and one in post-processing. Simon says that more are coming.
Our Young Folks, An illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls; Issued monthly; Publication Dates: January 1865 thru October 1873 when it merged with St. Nicholas.
Volume 1: Nine issues are in PP, one issue is undergoing formatting. Two volumes have been posted to Project Gutenberg.
Volume 2: Three issues are undergoing proofing; two are in P1: Waiting and there are several more in prep.
Warmheart's wikipage for the Periodical can be found through this link: http://www.pgdpcanada.net/wiki/index.php/Our_Young_Folks .
Scientific American--these are very early issues, too--from 1846. The first issue has now been posted. Simon has more being prepped for proofing.
We've started a wiki page for it: http://www.pgdpcanada.net/wiki/index.php/Periodicals/Scientific_American.
The Maple Leaf--This is a Canadian juvenile periodical published between 1852 and 1854. Susan and IonaV are going to share the duties of PMing. Iona is handling the prep, Susan has downloaded the scans and will do the PPing. They are hoping to get it into the rounds within the next week or so.
A wikipage has been created: http://www.pgdpcanada.net/wiki/index.php/The_Maple_Leaf
Remember, these aren't the only periodicals that we can do--there are lots of others out there and some that are very different than "Graham's". Is there one that you'd like to do? Suggestions for favourite OLD periodicals are always welcome, but they must meet 3 criteria:
- published before 1860 to avoid the need for copyright checking
- good quality scans of a reasonable number of issues (preferably in whole volumes=a year)
- interesting content, out of the ordinary
ÜberProject #5: Works by Charles Dickens
Simple Simon and IonaV are Dickens fans. We know that there are many more out there. Although there are some of Dickens' works on the other PG sites, some of it is text only. We've got early editions of those books with illustrations as well as stories that have not yet been posted. As well, there are letters and essays and ...
- Bleak House, the original version illustrated by "Phiz", is in prep.
- The Mystery of Edwin Drood is currently in F2: Available.
- A Christmas Carol, The Original Manuscript has been posted to Project Gutenberg.
- Two short stories for our anniversary blitz are posted to our wiki (http://www.pgdpcanada.net/wiki/index.php/Dickens_%22First_Anniversary%22_project): The Christmas Tree and What Christmas is as we get older. They will be posted to PG Canada with other Dickens' short stories.
More details and an ÜberProject wiki page to come.
ÜberProject #6: John Graves Simcoe
John Graves Simcoe, Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, and military leader of Canada, and one of the true Canadian "Fathers of Confederation". This is NOT dull history either.
Projects about or by Simcoe in proofing and/or formatting rounds: 1; post-processing: 1. Three have been posted to PGC.
Simon is soliciting other material by or about Simcoe--do you know of any?
ÜberProject #7: Gilbert (George) Murray
Gilbert Murray lived from 1866-1957. He was quite a prolific writer with some 90 odd titles to his name with 32 of them being translations of Greek dramas.
Status of these projects--post processing: 1; proofing/foofing: 2; P1: Waiting: 1; in prep: 2+.
Miscia has created a wikipage which will be a work in progress naturally: http://www.pgdpcanada.net/wiki/index.php/Gilbert_%28George%29_Murray_%281866-1957%29
ÜberProject #8: Art Latcham Magic Collection
New ÜberProject coming soon...
All "magic" lovers should get ready. If you know of anyone who likes magic and who are not members of DPC, be sure to let them know about this upcoming ÜberProject.
And if you want to be really involved with the project in some way: prepping, PMing, PPing, managing the ÜberProject wikipage or any of the tasks listed in the Simon Says... article above, just send Simon a PM and let him know.
We Grow Every Day
We are now up to 857 members. Welcome to all new members; I hope you find some projects that you will enjoy doing. Many of our members are also members of DP-Int/US and/or DP Europe--we welcome them and thank them for all their continued support and interest in DPC. (Numbers are accurate up to "press" time.)
| New | |
|---|---|
| March 2010 | 17 |
| February 2010 | 27 |
| January 2010 | 18 |
| 2009 total | 321 |
| 2008 total | 235 |
| 2007 total | 239 |
| Total to date | 857 |
Milestones
We are going to use this space to "celebrate" notable milestones achieved by a member, team, group or project. For example, we'll report when a member completes 5,000 pages in any one round; then we'll let you know when they've done 10,000 pages and so on.
The "team" numbers are the cumulative totals for each round for each member while they are members of a particular team. So that's why, the team pages go up whenever a team member's totals increase. Another reason to join a team or two....
Completed 60,000 pages in a round:
- no one at present...
Completed 55,000 pages in a round:
- Foofers' Corner in F2
Completed 50,000 pages in a round:
- no one at present...
Completed 45,000 pages in a round:
- uwe-joachim in F2
Completed 40,000 pages in a round:
- no one at present...
Completed 35,000 pages in a round:
- Team USA in P3
Completed 30,000 pages in a round:
- rolands in P3
Completed 25,000 pages in a round:
- Ex-Pats in F2
- Team Canada in P1
Completed 20,000 pages in a round:
- Foofers' Corner in F1
- LOTE Flotes my Bote in F2
- P3 Pros in P3
- Team Canada in P2
Completed 15,000 pages in a round:
- P2 Expediters in P3 NEW!!!
Completed 10,000 pages in a round:
- Bibi in P3
- De2164 in F1
- hugger1935 in F1
- rcool in P1 and P2
- Scribe in F2
- snowseraph in P2
- stygiania in P3 NEW!!!
- Team Canada in P3 and F1
- Team German in F2
- Team USA in F2
Completed 5,000 pages in a round:
- Adair in F1 and F2
- Antigony in F1
- cmspence in F2 NEW!!!
- Daniel G in P1
- Drama Team in P2 and P3 NEW!!!
- gmiller in P2
- goofball in P1
- hugger1935 in P1, P2, P3 and F2 NEW!!!
- Infomaniacs in P2 and P3
- Marmaduke in P3 NEW!!!
- mcbax in P3
- Miscia in P3
- Pippin in F1
- RCEberwein in F1
- snowseraph in P1
- stygiania in F2
- supo88 in P2
- Warmheart in P2 and F1
- yajeulb in F1
- DPing with Cats in P1, P2 and F1
- Foofers' Corner in P2 and P3
- Infomaniacs in P2 and P3
- P2 Expediters in P2 and F2
- P3 Pros in F2
- Team British Columbia in P1, P2 and P3
- Team français in P3 NEW!!!
- Team German in P3 and F1
- Team Smoothy (aka 'Smoothies') in P2
- Team UK in P1 and P2
- Team USA in P1, P2 and F1
- Weather Reports in F2
And how many pages have been done in each of the rounds? Naturally, F2 will be at the bottom since they are the last round that gets the projects before PPing and P1 will be on top since they get to start all the projects. <grin> Another consideration is that P3 or F2 stats may be slightly smaller if the PM/PPer has skipped his/her/their project through either one or both of those rounds. So let's see where each round was at the end of February:
- P1 completed over 139,000 pages
- P2 completed over 129,000 pages
- P3 completed over 113,000 pages
- F1 completed over 115,000 pages
- F2 completed over 108,000 pages
Great work, people!!!
Proofing & Formatting Stats
Well, Spring is definitely here ... everyone is feeling industrious. Other than F1, all rounds have already reached and surpassed their March targets. P2 is already over 200%!! F1 is almost at 95% of their target and so should definitely reach their target before the end of the month. Way to go, people!!!
| Round | P1 | P2 | P3 | F1 | F2 |
| March target | 3,410 | 3,410 | 3,100 | 3,410 | 3,100 |
| *March to date | 5,126 | 7,171 | 4,321 | 3,218 | 4,637 |
| March to date % | 150.32% | 210.29% | 139.39% | 94.37% | 149.58% |
*Numbers accurate to "press" time.
For more statistics and related links go to: Statistics Central.
Books In Process And/or Posted To PG Canada or PG-International
At press time, we had 325 Gold Star books posted to PGC or PG-Int (with 5 in PPV). Fantastic work, everyone!!
There are currently 321 Silver Star projects in post processing (with 75 waiting for PPers) and 126 Bronze Star projects which are currently undergoing proofing or formatting; there are another 28 waiting in the queue. For more details about the posted and/or active projects, please see the listings on the DPC Welcome page.
User Team Talk
Have you checked out our user teams? To check out the teams or to join one go to: User Teams. The Team threads are located under Proofing Team Talk. Is there a team that you'd like to see? You can create a team from the link on the User Teams page--you might be surprised by who shows up to join you.
We have 28 teams; more are always welcome.
Possible Future Articles
This is YOUR newsletter: yes, there are forum posts and user team posts, but is there something that you want to tell the whole DPC community? You are allowed to brag here. You can also be anonymous if you choose ... we won't tell.
- Tips or Hints: for those people who do/did a lot of proofing and/or formatting on DP-Int/US &/or DP-Eur, do you have any tips or "rules" that you follow to help yourself while you proof or format? Even a re-wording of a guideline that helps you remember how to do something specific.
- Tell us why you joined DPC.
- Quotable Quotes: have you seen a thought-provoking quote that is relevant to the DP Community while you were doing your proofing that you just had to pass on?...
- The most interesting, outrageous, or strangest line you proofed: before it was proofed (if that was the outrageous or strange part) and what it was after proofing (please do not submit obscene language, it will not be published).
- New projects: PMs is there a series of books or books by a very prolific author that you'd like to do?--let us know so that we can help pass the word to the proofers so they'll be there to jump in and work on them.
- Kudos, Bouquets & Compliments: are there any DPers that you would like to give special thanks and/or recognition to: a mentor who gave you lots of guidance, a PPer that made your project into a very wonderful looking book for posting to PG, a CPer or image/text preparer who went the extra little bit to provide you with clean scans, well OCR'd text, or good illustrations for your project, another DPer who made you feel really welcome or provided you with some good advice or....
- "Guest articles" by anyone and everyone who wishes to....
