[gweekly] PT1b Weekly Project Gutenberg Newsletter

Michael Hart hart at pglaf.org
Wed Dec 28 09:38:59 PST 2005


pt1b3.d05
Weekly_December_28.txt
The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, December 28, 2005 PT1
******eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since July 4, 1971*******

PT1B

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***Progress Report, including Distributed Proofreaders


     In the first 11.75 months of this year, we produced 2928 new eBooks.

It took us from July 1971 to Nov 2001 to produce our first 2928 eBooks!

            That's 51 WEEKS as Compared to ~30 Years!!!

                  50   New eBooks This Week
                  59   New eBooks Last Week [took one out]
                 170   New eBooks This Month [Dec]

                ~249   Average Per Month in 2005
                 336   Average Per Month in 2004
                 355   Average Per Month in 2003
                 203   Average Per Month in 2002
                 103   Average Per Month in 2001

                2928   New eBooks in 2005
                4049   New eBooks in 2004
                4164   New eBooks in 2003
                2441   New eBooks in 2002
                1240   New eBooks in 2001
                ====
              14,822   New eBooks Since Start Of 2001
                       That's Only 59.50 Months!
                       ~250 books per month!

              17,884  Total Project Gutenberg eBooks
              14,865   eBooks This Week Last Year
                ====
               3,019   New eBooks In Last 12 Months

                 517   eBooks From Project Gutenberg of Australia
                       [This does NOT include PGAu eBooks posted
                       at the U.S. site:  www.gutenberg.org ]

                 124   eBooks From Project Gutenberg of Europe
                       [Will be added to total in 2006]
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PROJECT GUTENBERG DISTRIBUTED PROOFREADERS UPDATE:

Since starting production in October 2000,
Distributed Proofreaders has contributed
7,864 Books to Project Gutenberg.

For more complete DP statistics, visit:
http://www.pgdp.net/c/stats/stats_central.php

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*Project Gutenberg Consortia Center Report

Please note the addition of the Internet Archive
marked with <<< below.

PGCC's current eBook and eDocument Collections listings
of 18 collections. . .with this week's listing as:

Alex-Wire Tap Collection,           2,036 HTML eBook Files
Black Mask Collection,             12,000 HTML eBook Files
The Coradella Bookshelf Collection,   141 eBook Files
DjVu Collection,                      272 PDF and DJVU eBook Files
eBooks at Adelaide Collection,        27,709 eBook Files
Himalayan Academy,                  3,400 HTML eBook Files
Internet Archive                  ~30,000 eBook Files [In Progress]  <<<
Literal Systems Collection,            68 MP3 eBook Files
Logos Group Collection,           ~34,000 TXT eBook Files
Poet's Corner Poetry Collection,    6,700 Poetry Files
Project Gutenberg Collection,      15,035 eBook Files
PGCC Chinese eBook Collection       ~300 eBook files   <<< Note Name Change
Renaisscance Editions Collection,     561 HTML eBook Files
Swami Center Collection,               78 HTML eBook Files
Tony Kline Collection,                223 HTML eBook Files
Widger Library,                     2,600 HTML eBook Files
CIA's Electronic Reading Room,      2,019 Reference Files
=======Grand Total Files=========~137,142 Total Files=====

Average Size of the Collections     8,067.18 Total Files


These eBooks are catalogued as per the instructions of
their donors:  some are one file per book; some have a
file for each chapter; and some even have a file for a
single page or poem. . .or are overcounted for reasons
I have not mentioned. . .each of which could cause the
overcounting or duplication of numbers.

If we presume 2 out of 3 of these files are overcounts,
that leaves a unique book total of
                                   ~45,714 Unique eBooks

If we presume 3 out of 4 of these files are overcounts,
that leaves a unique book total of
                                   ~34,286 Unique eBooks

***

Please also note that over 25,000 eBooks are listed via
The Online Books Page, of which over 5,700 are from PG.
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/

In addition:  The Internet Public Library had a similar
listing which is now in limbo.  If anyone knows what is
happening with the IPL, please let us know.  Inquiries,
made months ago, and again recently, have not turned up
any current information.

You can try a new IPL service at:

http://www.ipl.org/div/subject/browse/hum60.60.00/

It would appear that The Internet Public Library ended
its first incarnation with about 22,284 entries, which
has now been surpassed by the Online Books Page.

Still looking for more Internet Public Library info.

***

Today Is Day #357 of 2005
This Completes Week #51 and Month #11.75  [364 days this year]
    07 Days/01 Weeks To Go  [We get 52 Wednesdays this year]
2,116 Books To Go To #20,000
[Our production year begins/ends
1st Wednesday of the month/year]

    57   Weekly Average in 2005
    78   Weekly Average in 2004
    79   Weekly Average in 2003
    47   Weekly Average in 2002
    24   Weekly Average in 2001

    45   Only 45 Numbers Left On Our Reserved Numbers list
          [Used to be well over 100]


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***


Statistical Review

In the 51 weeks of this year, we have produced 2928 new eBooks.
It took us from 7/71 to 11/01 to produce our FIRST 2928 eBooks!!!

          That's 51 WEEKS as Compared to ~30 YEARS!!!


FLASHBACK!

Here's a sample of what books we were doing around eBook #2928

Mon Year Title and Author                                  [filename.ext] ###
A "C" Following The eText # Indicates That This eText Is Under Copyright

[Note:  books without month and year entries are now in new catalog format]

Nov 2001 Time and Life, by Thomas Henry Huxley    [THH #18][thx08xxx.xxx] 2928
Nov 2001 The Darwinian Hypothesis, by Thomas H. Huxley[#17][thx07xxx.xxx] 2927
Nov 2001 Examination of Origin of Species by TH Huxley[#16][thx06xxx.xxx] 2926
Nov 2001 The Conditions of Existence, by T. H. Huxley [#15][thx05xxx.xxx] 2925
Nov 2001 The Perpetuation of Living Beings, by Huxley [#14][thx04xxx.xxx] 2924
Nov 2001 The Origination of Living Beings, by T Huxley[#13][thx03xxx.xxx] 2923
Nov 2001 Past Condition of Organic Nature, T. H. Huxley #12[thx02xxx.xxx] 2922
Nov 2001 Present Condition of Organic Nature, TH Huxley #11[thx01xxx.xxx] 2921
Hall-Marked and Others (Six Short Plays), by John Galsworthy              2920

*

Have We Given Away A Trillion Books/Dollars Yet?

1.16 Trillion eBooks Given Away

If our average eBook has reached just 1% of the world population of
6,487,906,504 that would be 17,884 x 64,879,065  = ~1.16 Trillion !!!

With 17,884 eBooks online as of December 28, 2005 it now takes an average
of ~1% of the world gaining a nominal value of ~$.86 from each book.
[1% world population x #eBooks] 64,879,065 x 17,882 x $.86 = ~$1 Trillion
[Google "world population" "popclock" to get the most current figures.]

*

A Trillion Dollars Given Away At Just $.56 Value Per Book

With 17,884 eBooks online as of December 28, 2005 it now takes an average
of 100,000,000 readers gaining a nominal value of $0.56 from each book.
This "cost" is down from about $.67 when we had 14,865 eBooks a year ago.

Our Target Audience Is 1.5% Of The World Population, or 100,000,000 readers.


At 17,884 eBooks in 34 Years and 05.75 Months We Averaged
      ~519 Per Year
        43.2 Per Month
         1.42 Per Day

At 2928 eBooks Done In The 357 Days Of 2005 We Averaged
     8.2 Per Day
      57 Per Week
     249 Per Month


If you are interested in the population of the world or of the U.S.
you might want to know that these numbers, official as they appear,
are just just estimates, and perhaps not as accurate as we hope.

Recently the U.S. Congress, pertaining to district reapportionment,
who gets to vote for which Congresspeople, decided that many of the
districts were undercounted by 5%, perhaps then later deciding that
all districts had been undercounted by 5% [can't recall details].

However, I just this moment heard a news item that made me wonder a
bit more about the accuracy of the U.S. Census.  A "Special Census"
is taking place in Normal, Illinois, that is expected to count more
people, by a factor of 3,000 or 3,400, depending on which source.

45,386 was the population as per the 2000 Census, so 3,000 added to
this would be an increase of 6.6%, and 3,400 would be 7.5%, above a
possibly automatic increase of 5% as per the same terms above but I
presume this is in addition to previous adjustments.

Of course, we should consider that we would have to double figures,
perhaps to 15% from those above, if are considering the normal time
between censuses of 10 years, these are for 5 years' growth.

In previous news I heard about the U.S. Census, no mention was made
about the annexation of various nearly locations as a cause of this
normally unexpected growth, but it is mentioned at the site I found
on the subject of the current Special Census.

If annexation is the primary cause of such increases, country wide,
then we should not be expecting a huge rise in the 2010 Census, but
rather should expect something more along the norm.  However, if it
is not annexation, but more actual people on the average, then this
might be an indicator that the population of the U.S. may have seen
300 million go by some time ago.

For more details, see:  www.normal.org/WhatsNew/Census.htm


The production statistics are calculated based on full weeks'
production; each production-week starts/ends Wednesday noon,
starts with the first Wednesday of January.  January 5th was
the first Wednesday of 2005, and thus ended PG's production
year of 2004 and began the production year of 2005 at noon.

This year there will be 52 Wednesdays, thus no extra week.


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