May 21, 2010
From DPCanadaWiki
Volume 3, Issue #64--May 21, 2010
(Full listing of previous issues is available at DPC Newsletters)
Simon Says...
We have always intended to develop and launch an independent “display site”, quite different from PGC, to accomplish some goals that are outside their mandate:
- ensure that DPC’s projects are featured strongly, and showcased to demonstrate the wonderful talents of our members;
- link the completed projects directly from the DPC site;
- emphasize usefulness to the reader, rather than the archival aspects of PGC;
- build strong links to other e-book archives, and provide a “back-up” for some of their projects that are important to Canada;
- involve new volunteers who bring additional skill-sets (then persuade them to help on DPC, as well).
I am now beginning the detail work of designing the database and website that will implement this idea, and I need your help and suggestions. Of course, I’ll consult with PG-INT, PGC and PG-AUS, to make sure we take advantage of their experience. And I am arranging discussions with Archives Canada about possible cooperation.
So, over the next few issues of the Newsletter, I’ll describe the framework and preliminary design ideas for the display site, and invite your input. Please respond by PM on DPC or email to starlink@rogers.com Don’t be shy, all ideas are welcome.
The first matter is “what do we call it?”
We want to convey large size (eventually this will be a massive collection of e-books, including all of DPC’s but many from other sources).
And we want to emphasize characteristics like, “easy to use”, “user-friendly”, “get involved personally”, “e-books”, “connections to history”… what other central themes should we include?
Think of a large collection of e-books, powerful indexing and search capability, additional content like author bios, book reviews, galleries of relevant art, reader interest areas (forums, wiki), timelines of history “illustrated” by related books … what other features would you like?
Please note that, while the new enterprise will be closely connected to DPC and other parts of the Gutenberg world, it will be completely independent, probably even owned by a separate entity (because it will be an e-book “publisher”, and must be protected legally against any suit re copyright violation). So names including DPC, for example, are not possible.
Words like ‘books’, ‘reading’, ‘biblio’, ‘library’, ‘read’ and ‘my’ come to mind, but are difficult to clear for a website name. Ideally, we’d invent a word or phrase that suggests some of these, but is a newly “coined” phrase that we can clear easily.
We will eventually need some royalty-free graphic ideas to decorate the pages of the site, particularly the top few pages that “receive” the user, and handle site navigation. For the rest we’ll develop several themes/page templates. Any illustrations you think would convey the ideas we’re trying to communicate?
Of course, the heart and soul of the site will be powerful database and search capabilities--all e-books will have “metadata” added, so that users can search on a wide variety of dimensions. For example, we plan to tag books with title, author name, author’s DOB and DOD, country of first publication, year of publication, several levels of genre and topic, keywords, publisher ... what other “tags” would you suggest?
We plan to “collect” both plain text and HTML versions of all books that will go on the site. The HTML will be displayed, and the text version will be used as part of the underlying database, so users can search on any word in the book. Thus we could do a search like:
find all books containing the word ‘aardvark’, but not the word ‘vanilla’, published in 1892, in Britain, and whose title contains the word ‘purple’.
Do you thinks we’d get any hits?
The overall flavour will be a friendly place to find e-books, not a scholarly archive. But the search capability will also attract scholars. How do we convey this duality of purpose without seeming like “just another e-book archive”?
What colours, images, fonts, page content, ideas, features, navigational patterns and other concepts will help us make this truly spectacular?
Don’t be afraid to let your imagination loose.
And for those that haven't seen it yet, here's the link to our Display Site forum. You can use one of the threads already there or start a new one for your comments, questions, ideas and/or suggestions.
Cheers, Simon
Special Requests
P3 Qualifications Q&A
Do you have any questions even remotely related to P3 qualification? Now's your chance!
stygiania (our P3 Quals PF) is going to prepare a Q&A page to go along with the current P3 Qualification wiki page. She is looking for any and all questions (or comments) even remotely related to P3 Quals. If you have a question (or a comment that she can turn into a question), please PM her. She also intends to prepare an article on the Q&As for the next newsletter (June 4) so please have your questions in before May 28.
Don't worry about wording--she's good at fixing that. She will not include any names--so you can ask anything you want ... even those "dumb" ones.... <<wink>>
Oh, if no one sends her any questions, she'll make up her own ... and they will probably not include the burning question: Why do we do it this way?...
She'll accept questions from anyone ... including formatters, I think....
Attention all CPers (current and potential) and PMs
De2164 is still looking for more French language projects. But he won't turn down any other languages if you have something in Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic,... oh, and English, naturally.
Any available PPers?
We can always use PPers; there are about 90 projects in the queue. Simple Simon advises that the PPV queue is EMPTY so he is looking for more PP'd projects. ... Can't post anything if there is nothing to PPV....
Lots of choices depending on what you like:
- easy, average, hard;
- history, biography, fiction, humour (or is that "humor" :wink:), folklore, periodicals, science, military, juvenile and other genres;
- most are in English, but there are several in Portuguese, one in German, one English with French and one in Spanish (at least at the time of writing);
- the projects range in size from about 25 pages to over 800;
- a number of them have illustrations.
Update--ÜberProject #8: Art Latcham Magic Collection
The Board of the Whitchurch-Stouffville Library approved the "Magic" project on May 13th. So what does that mean for DPC--besides the fact that we can go ahead with the project?
Simon will be setting up the procedures to control the process, beginning with copyright checks; he does have the first 5 books for scanning. If they prove to be a fair sample, then it looks as if about 60% of the books will be in the Public Domain (PD) in Canada. Realistically, some of the rest could probably go to PG-INT as being PD in the US--that's one of the decisions we have to make.
The deal is:
- We're going to have to use information about DODs gleaned from the "Magic trade" itself. Most of these authors didn't write any other kinds of books, are not well-known as authors, and frequently used "nom-de-plumes"; so the normal library/university/archive sources have never heard of most of them. [If you can help by searching other sites you have access to (e.g., genealogy sites, newspapers, etc.) for confirmation of DOD, please let Simon know--I know he'll be grateful.]
- We do the books we feel comfortable with--if a book was published after 1922 and we cannot find adequate information on DOD of the author and/or other contributors (e.g., illustrators), the book will have to wait ... maybe a very long time.
- The ones that are PD in Canada go to PGC and our display site (but ONLY our display site, if we cannot get really good copyright information that is acceptable to PGC), AND to the Library's own website.
- If we do the US-PD books (i.e., not PD in Canada), they go only to PG-INT.
There is a great deal of this material--books, pamphlets, posters, magazines.... We're going to have to be selective of what we do or risk overwhelming our work-flow. The true limitation may well be Simon's ability to deal with the scanning--he cannot allow the material out of his hands: that is in the agreement.
Expect the first projects in about 2 weeks. Likely, "The Life and Mysteries of the celebrated Dr. Q" and "Water Wizardry".
Editorial
Membership--We're looking good and should be able to welcome our 1,000th member by late summer or early fall ... or maybe even sooner. As an FYI, although DPC's official launch date is December 1, 2007, our first two members--DPCanada and Simple Simon--signed up August 2 & 3, 2007 respectively. Think we can make 1,000 before then? Hmm,... Anyway, we only need 100 or so more people to register.
So, what do you think we should do in celebration? A special project or ...?
Display Site--As you can see from the Simon Says... article above, Simon is full of ideas for our display site. He's looking for your help and ideas--it is OURS after all.
New and/or recurring articles--Have you ever thought about providing an article or a paragraph or an idea for the newsletter? That's how new articles and/or series start and continue to appear.
Anytime you have a good idea for the newsletter, please drop Quill a line. You can write such offerings yourself or provide an outline to Quill for further expansion. Don't worry, Quill always edits articles for grammar, punctuation and/or spelling errors so no need to fret about how you've said something. You can remain anonymous if you wish.
Articles about authors or books that you worked on as a CP, PM, proofer, foofer and/or PPer; kudos and compliments, landmarks, quotable quotes, tips or hints that you think will help others, questions, anything related to DPC or PG is welcome. See the list of ideas at the end of the newsletter.
Calling all Proofers--This is a constant request: we do have an ongoing need to get projects into the formatting rounds. Maybe all proofers--especially P3s--could commit to doing a few more pages every week ... at times, F1s don't have many projects to choose from and what they get are quickly dealt with. 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 is still working on these; in fact, he's going to work on them while he's away this coming weekend -- <<head shake>> -- some break....
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. See below for comments about the site code update.
ÜberProjects--see the regular updates below. There's a good possibility that several more of our Chronicles will be posted soon.
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.
Guidelines Summaries--IonaV, with the kind assistance of Long Green (aka Mama Beth) as well as stygiania and jjz (P3 and F2 Quals PFs respectively), is updating the Proofreading and Formatting Guidelines Summaries. The ones currently available through our FAQs page are a little out of date considering that some of the rules noted in the summaries are TOTALLY different from what we do!! <<oops>>
Upgraded DPC site code--There have been further delays so we won't see it for some time yet ... but that's life, isn't it. Comments from a recent post (April 21) by Simple Simon:
We will "synchronize" our site code with that of DP-INT, but it's proving to be more complicated than we thought. All current features of DP-INT, including WordCheck, will be implemented, except possibly a few items that would conflict with the fundamental security design of the DPC servers. (We use VMWare, and a series of "virtual machines" to accomplish our purposes, and this ultra-modern approach requires us to do some tasks in a specific way). The plan has been to depend solely on DP-INT and its Squirrels/Developers to keep the site code updated from "synchronization" onwards. But we may have to reconsider this approach. We are carefully watching the direction in which site development may go, and all the other proposals out there on the subject of site-redesign. These complications, together with our extremely scarce developer resources, are delaying "synchronization" severely.
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.
- Volume 26 is in P1: Available; Volumes 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 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 13, 17 & 24 are all in F2: Waiting.
- Ten 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,
- Volume 12: The Father of British Canada, A Chronicle of Carleton,
- Volume 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 is working on a draft of the "plain text" version for this book. This volume will take longer to PP as he is setting up precedents and procedures for the PPing of this project. If you've done any work on any of the volumes either here or at DP-Int, you'll know that they are not simple.
Vol. 66: Illinois, Louisiana, Iroquois, Lower Canada, 1702-1712, is now in post processing.
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 P2: 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
This was the first of our Periodicals ÜberProjects.
Second year-- prep: 6; P1: Waiting: 1; proofing/formatting rounds: 4; post-processing: 1; posted to Project Gutenberg: 0
First year-- ALL issues are posted to Project Gutenberg
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 3: prep: 1; P1: Waiting: 0; proofing/formatting rounds: 0; post-processing: 0; posted to Project Gutenberg: 0
Volume 2: prep: 3; P1: Waiting: 3; proofing/formatting rounds: 5; post-processing: 1; posted to Project Gutenberg: 0
Volume 1: post-processing: 10; posted to Project Gutenberg: 2
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 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 Canadian juvenile periodical was published between 1852 and 1854 for a total of 30 issues. IonaV is PMing and handling the prep. Susan downloaded the scans and will possibly do the PPing.
Volume 1 (6 issues): prep: 5; P1: Waiting: 0; proofing/formatting rounds: 1; post-processing: 0; posted to Project Gutenberg: 0.
A wikipage has been created: http://www.pgdpcanada.net/wiki/index.php/The_Maple_Leaf
"Old Periodicals" Criteria
Remember, these aren't the only periodicals that we can do--there are lots of others out there and some that are quite unique. Is there one that you'd like to do? Suggestions for favourite OLD periodicals are always welcome, but they must meet 3 criteria:
- published earlier than 1865 to avoid the need for copyright checking
- good quality scans of a reasonable number of issues (preferably in whole volumes of 6-months or a year)
- interesting content, out of the ordinary, Canadiana, ...
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 P1: Available.
- 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/formatting rounds: 0; post-processing: 2. 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: 5; proofing/formatting rounds: 3; 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
This new ÜberProject should be launched within the next few weeks--see the update above for current status details.
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 899 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 | |
|---|---|
| May 2010 | 16 |
| April 2010 | 26 |
| 2010 Q1 | 62 |
| 2009 total | 321 |
| 2008 total | 235 |
| 2007 total | 239 |
| Total to date | 899 |
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 65,000 pages in a round:
- no one at present...
Completed 60,000 pages in a round:
- Foofers' Corner in F2
Completed 55,000 pages in a round:
- no one at present...
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:
- Team USA in P3
Completed 35,000 pages in a round:
- no one at present...
Completed 30,000 pages in a round:
- rolands in P3
- Ex-Pats in F2
- Team Canada in P1
Completed 25,000 pages in a round:
- P3 Pros in P3
Completed 20,000 pages in a round:
- Foofers' Corner in F1
- LOTE Flotes my Bote in F2
- Team Canada in P2
Completed 15,000 pages in a round:
- P2 Expediters in P3
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
- Drama Team in P2 NEW!!!
- Team Canada in P3 and F1
- Team German in F2
- Team USA in P2 and F2
- Weather Reports in F2 NEW!!!
Completed 5,000 pages in a round:
- Adair in F1 and F2
- Antigony in F1
- cmspence in F2
- Daniel G in P1
- gmiller in P2
- goofball in P1
- hugger1935 in P1, P2, P3 and F2
- Marmaduke in P3
- mcbax in P3
- Miscia in P3 and F2 NEW!!!
- Pippin in F1
- RCEberwein in F1
- snowseraph in P1
- stygiania in F2
- supo88 in P2
- Warmheart in P2 and F1
- yajeulb in F1
- Drama Team in P1, P3 and 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, P3 and F2
- Team Canada in F2
- Team français in P3
- Team German in P3 and F1
- Team Smoothy (aka 'Smoothies') in P2
- Team UK in P1 and P2
- Team USA in P1 and F1
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 April:
- P1 completed over 153,000 pages
- P2 completed over 142,000 pages
- P3 completed over 124,000 pages
- F1 completed over 124,000 pages
- F2 completed over 118,000 pages
Great work, people!!!
Proofing & Formatting Stats
Now May is 21/31 or 67.7% done; so, let's see ... P1, P2 and P3 have reached their May targets. <<thumbsup>> F1 and F2 are both well on the way to reaching their targets ... just a few more pages. <<grin>>
| Round | P1 | P2 | P3 | F1 | F2 |
| May target | 3,410 | 3,410 | 3,100 | 3,410 | 3,100 |
| *May to date | 4,150 | 3,962 | 3,349 | 2,859 | 2,441 |
| May to date % | 121.70% | 116.19% | 108.03% | 83.84% | 78.74% |
*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 350 Gold Star books posted to PGC or PG-Int (with 2 in PPV processing). Fantastic work, everyone!!
There are currently 366 Silver Star projects in post processing (with 91 waiting for PPers) and 150 Bronze Star projects which are currently undergoing proofing or formatting; there are another 28 waiting in the queue (not including the BEGIN projects). 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....
