[gweekly] PT1 Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter
Michael Hart
hart at pglaf.org
Wed Mar 2 09:50:02 PST 2005
GWeekly_March_02.txt
*The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, March 02, 2005 PT1*
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
[Search for "*eBook" or "*Intro". . .to jump to that section, etc.]
*eBook Milestones
*Introduction
*Hot Requests New Sites and Announcements
*Continuing Requests and Announcements
*Progress Report
*Distributed Proofreaders Collection Report
*Project Gutenberg Consortia Center Report
*Permanent Requests For Assistance:
*Donation Information
*Access To The Project Gutenberg Collections
*Mirror Site Information
*Instant Access To Our Latest eBooks
*Have We Given Away A Trillion Yet?
*Flashback
*Weekly eBook update:
This is now in PT2 of the Weekly Newsletter
Also collected in the Monthly Newsletter
Corrections in separate section
8 New From PG Australia [Australian, Canadian Copyright Etc.]
74 New Public Domain eBooks Under US Copyright
*Headline News from NewsScan and Edupage
*Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists
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*eBook Milestones
We Have Given Away ONE TRILLION eBooks!!!
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[Just passed this mark this week. . .1.0026 trillion!!!]
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15,612 eBooks As Of Today!!!
12,550 New eBooks Since The Start Of 2001
We Have Produced 656 eBooks in 2005
We Are ~56% of the Way from 10,000 to 20,000
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4,382 to go to 20,000!!!
We have now averaged ~464 eBooks per year since July 4th, 1971
~251 Per month since the start of 2001
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82 This Week
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It took ~1.25 years from Oct. 2003 to Jan. 2005 from 10,000 to 15,000
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***Introduction
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***Continuing Requests New Sites and Announcements
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***Progress Report, including Distributed Proofreaders
In the first 02.00 months of this year, we produced 656 new eBooks.
It took us from July 1971 to Sept 1996 to produce our first 656 eBooks!
That's 8 WEEKS as Compared to ~25 Years!
82 New eBooks This Week
76 New eBooks Last Week
364 New eBooks This Month [Feb]
328 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
656 New eBooks in 2005
4049 New eBooks in 2004
4164 New eBooks in 2003
2441 New eBooks in 2002
1240 New eBooks in 2001
====
12550 New eBooks Since Start Of 2001
That's Only 50.00 Months!
251 Per Month
15,612 Total Project Gutenberg eBooks
11,711 eBooks This Week Last Year
====
3,901 New eBooks In Last 12 Months
422 eBooks From Project Gutenberg of Australia
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Please note the new format for this week's report.
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For more complete DP statistics, visit:
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[So I went to the source listed in the line above and got]
Jan 2005 - 248
Feb 2005 - 330
Mar 2005 - 15
593 Total for 2005
Previous reports looked like the one below,
please let us know your preferences.
*Distributed Proofreaders Collection Report
Since completing its first eBook (#3320) on Mar 13th, 2001,
the Distributed Proofreaders team has now produced its 6,390th
eBook (#14867). Of these are 5,992 unique, brand-new titles.
Projects completed during the past year:
Mar 2004 - 365
Apr 2004 - 276
May 2004 - 235
Jun 2004 - 232
Jul 2004 - 231
Aug 2004 - 220
Sep 2004 - 182
Oct 2004 - 263
Nov 2004 - 280
Dec 2004 - 287
Jan 2005 - 248
Feb 2005 - 11 (as of 2 Feb)
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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
***
Today Is Day #56 of 2005
This Completes Week #8 and Month #02.00
308 Days/44 Weeks To Go [We get 52 Wednesdays this year]
4,385 Books To Go To #20,000
[Our production year begins/ends
1st Wednesday of the month/year]
82 Weekly Average in 2005
78 Weekly Average in 2004
79 Weekly Average in 2003
47 Weekly Average in 2002
24 Weekly Average in 2001
41 Only 41 Numbers Left On Our Reserved Numbers list
[Used to be well over 100]
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***
Statistical Review
In the 8 weeks of this year, we have produced 656 new eBooks.
It took us from 7/71 to 9/96 to produce our FIRST 656 eBooks!!!
That's 8 WEEKS as Compared to ~25 YEARS!!!
FLASHBACK!
Here's a sample of what books we were doing around eBook #656
Mon Year Title and Author [filename.ext] ###
A "C" Following The eText # Indicates That This eText Is Under Copyright
Oct 1996 The Old Curiosity Shop, by Charles Dickens [CD#12][curioxxx.xxx] 700
Oct 1996 A Child's History of England, Charles Dickens CD11[achoexxx.xxx] 699
Oct 1996 Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin, R. L. Stevenson[RLS#33][fleemxxx.xxx] 698
Oct 1996 The Light Princess, by George MacDonald [GM#2] [ltprnxxx.xxx] 697
Oct 1996 The Castle of Otranto, by Horace Walpole [HP#1] [cotrtxxx.xxx] 696
Oct 1996 Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Chas Kingsley [glcusxxx.xxx] 695
Oct 1996 Stories from Everybody's Magazine, 1910 [10evmxxx.xxx] 694
Oct 1996 The Autobiography of a Quack, by S. Weir Mitchell [auqakxxx.xxx] 693
Oct 1996 Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley, Vol X [10jwrxxx.xxx] 692
Oct 1996 Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley, Vol I [01jwrxxx.xxx] 691
Oct 1996 Proposed Roads to Freedom, by Bertrand Russell[#1][rfreexxx.xxx] 690
Oct 1996 The Kreutzer Sonata, et al, by Leo Tolstoy/Tolstoi[krsonxxx.xxx] 689
Oct 1996 The Goodness of St. Rocque et al, by Alice Dunbar [stroqxxx.xxx] 688
Oct 1996 A Personal Record, by Joseph Conrad [Conrad #11] [aprjcxxx.xxx] 687
Oct 1996 The Treaty of the European Union [Maastricht] [maastxxx.xxx] 686
Oct 1996 The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki [abombxxx.xxx] 685
Oct 1996 Worldwide Effects of Nuclear War-Some Perspectives[nukwrxxx.xxx] 684
Oct 1996 The Compleat Angler, by Izaak Walton [tcangxxx.xxx] 683
Oct 1996 Catalan's Constant [Ramanujan's Formula] [Math#15][ctcstxxx.xxx] 682
Oct 1996 Creatures That Once Were Men, by Maxim Gorky [#1] [crmenxxx.xxx] 681
Oct 1996 The Golden Threshold, by Sarojini Naidu [gldthxxx.xxx] 680
Oct 1996 Poems, by Frances E. W. Harper [pfewhxxx.xxx] 679
Oct 1996 The Cricket on the Hearth, by Charles Dickens #10 [tcothxxx.xxx] 678
Oct 1996 Heroes, by Charles Kingsley [Greek Fairy Tales] [ghrosxxx.xxx] 677
Oct 1996 The Battle of Life, by Charles Dickens[Dickens#10][batlfxxx.xxx] 676
Oct 1996 American Notes, by Charles Dickens [Dickens #9] [amntsxxx.xxx] 675
Oct 1996 Plutarch's Lives, A. H. Clough, ["Dryden's Trans"][plivsxxx.xxx] 674
Oct 1996 Gutenberg Webster's Unabridged Dictionary [HTML] [pgwhtxxx.xxx] 673C
(File Size: 45M unzipped) (Note: The Webster's Unabridged Dictionary
(is in a text markup format similar to HTML.)
Sep 1996 The Secret Guide to Computers, by Russ Walter [sgcwpxxx.xxx] 672C
Sep 1996 Phil, the Fiddler, by Horatio Alger, Jr.[Alger #8][phidlxxx.xxx] 671
Sep 1996 The Gutenberg Webster's Unabridged Dictionary [XZ][pgwxzxxx.xxx] 670C
. . .
Sep 1996 The Gutenberg Webster's Unabridged Dictionary [AB][pgwabxxx.xxx] 660C
Sep 1996 Paul The Peddler, by Horatio Alger, Jr. [Alger #7][ptpedxxx.xxx] 659
Sep 1996 The Fall of Troy, by Quintus Smyrnaeus [400 A.D.] [ftroyxxx.xxx] 658
Sep 1996 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Trans. by James Ingram [angsxxxx.xxx] 657
Sep 1996 Life of Robert Browning by William Sharp [shabrxxx.xxx] 656
Sep 1996 Life and Letters of Robert Browning, by Mrs. Orr [orrbrxxx.xxx] 655
Sep 1996 Grace Abounding to Chief of Sinners by John Bunyan[gacosxxx.xxx] 654
Sep 1996 The Chimes, by Charles Dickens [Dickens #8][tchmsxxx.xxx] 653
Sep 1996 Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, by Samuel Johnson#2[rslasxxx.xxx] 652
Sep 1996 Phantasmagoria and Other Poems by Lewis Carroll #5[fntsmxxx.xxx] 651
Sep 1996 Pictures From Italy, by Charles Dickens[Dickens#7][picitxxx.xxx] 650
*
Have We Given Away A Trillion Books/Dollars Yet???
With 15,612 eBooks online as of March 02, 2005 it now takes an average
of ~1% of the world gaining a nominal value of ~$1.00 from each book.
1% of the world population is 64,219,651 x 15,612 x $1.00 = $1+ trillion
[Just passed this mark this week. . .1.0026 trillion!!!]
With 15,530 eBooks online as of February 23, 2005 it now takes an average
of 100,000,000 readers gaining a nominal value of $0.64 from each book,
This "cost" is down from about $.87 when we had 11,573 eBooks a year ago.
100 million readers is only ~1.5% of the world's population!
At 15,530 eBooks in 33 Years and 07.75 Months We Averaged
~462 Per Year
38.5 Per Month
1.26 Per Day
At 574 eBooks Done In The 49 Days Of 2005 We Averaged
11.7 Per Day
82 Per Week
332 Per Month
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.
***
*Headline News from NewsScan and Edupage
NewsScan is ceasing publication for at least a while as of today,
we send our best wishes.
[PG Editor's Comments In Brackets]
[India will be following in the steps of China, and then will
come Indonesia, and "suddenly" half the world's population will
no longer be "Third World" or "developing countries." This is
obvious to anyone paying attention, but we will find that some
very important people, institutions and countries have been
keeping their heads in the sand.]
BRAIN DRAIN CHANGES DIRECTION
Whereas a few years ago the "brain drain" of Indian talent to the West
represented a $2 billion annual loss to India, the recent growth of the tech
industry in India is bringing home as many as 45% of the Indian
high-technology workers abroad. Some engineering schools are already
claiming a 50% decline in the number of students leaving the country, and V.
Kalyanaraman of the prestigious engineering school IIT in Madras says:
"Students are finding interesting and challenging jobs in India. The pay is
also better than it used to be, and they find that they can have a good
quality of life." (USA Today 24 Feb 2005)
<http://www.usatoday.com/tech/world/2005-02-24-indians-tech-wave_x.htm>
You have been reading excerpts from NewsScan: NewsScan Daily
is underwritten by RLG, a world-class organization making
significant and sustained contributions to the effective
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NewsScan-To-Go: http://www.newsscan.com/handheld/current.html
*
>From Edupage
EDUCAUSE PUBLISHES FIRST WEB-ONLY BOOK
EDUCAUSE has published its first Web-only book, "Educating the Net
Generation," edited by Diana Oblinger, vice president of EDUCAUSE and
director of the National Learning Infrastructure Initiative, and James
Oblinger, chancellor of North Carolina State University. The e-book is
available in PDF and HTML formats, with Web-only resources (further
reading, video, podcasts, and useful links) listed on its home page. A
file of the complete book is available for download and printing.
EDUCAUSE, 25 February 2005
http://www.educause.edu/books/educatingthenetgen/5989
You have been reading excerpts from Edupage:
If you have questions or comments about Edupage,
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-958352.html
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***
*HEADLINE NEWS AVOIDED BY MOST OF THE MAJOR U.S. MEDIA
Recent revisions to SAT [Scholastic Aptitude Tests] were
not successful, so even more revisions are being added.
*STRANGE QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"They both thought they were above the law."
[re: Howard Hughes and President Nixon being
involved in the Watergate scandal]
Nixon will be elected "under our sponsorship
and supervision every step of the way."
Howard Hughes
*PREDICTIONS OF THE WEEK
India will will be following in the footsteps of China
in terms of industrial development, then Indonesia.
*ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK
If you put your hand over the portion of the globe that
represents China, India and Indonesia, etc., half of the
world's population lives in the area represented.
*
"If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely
100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same,
it would look something like the following. There would be:
57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south
8 Africans
52 would be female
48 would be male
70 would be non-white
30 would be white
70 would be non-Christian
30 would be Christian
6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth
and all 6 would be from the United States
80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer from malnutrition
1 would be near death; 1 would be near birth
1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education
1 would own a computer
I would like to bring some of these figures more up to date,
as obviously if only 1% of 6 billion people owned a computer
then there would be only 60 million people in the world who
owned a computer, yet we hear that 3/4 + of the United States
households have computers, out of over 100 million households.
Thus obviously that is over 1% of the world population, just in
the United States.
I just called our local reference librarian and got the number
of US households from the 2004-5 U.S. Statistical Abstract at:
111,278,000 as per data from 2003 U.S Census Bureau reports.
If we presume the saturation level of U.S. computer households
is now around 6/7, or 86%, that is a total of 95.4 million,
and that's counting just one computer per household, and not
counting households with more than one, schools, businesses, etc.
I also found some figures that might challenge the literacy rate
given above, and would like some help researching these and other
such figures, if anyone is interested.
BTW, while I was doing this research, I came across a statistic
that said only 10% of the world's population is 60+ years old.
This means that basically 90% of the world's population would
never benefit from Social Security, even if the wealthy nations
offered it to them free of charge. Then I realized that the US
population has the same kind of age disparity, in which the rich
live so much longer than the poor, the whites live so much longer
than the non-whites. Thus Social Security is paid by all, but is
distributed more to the upper class whites, not just because they
can receive more per year, but because they will live more years
to receive Social Security. The average poor non-white may never
receive a dime of Social Security, no matter how much they pay in.
***
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