PG Weekly Newsletter: Part 1b (2006-06-07)

by Michael Cook on June 7, 2006
Newsletters

From hart at pglaf.org  Wed Jun  7 09:34:00 2006
From: hart at pglaf.org (Michael Hart)
Date: Wed Jun  7 09:34:03 2006
Subject: [gweekly] PT1a Weekly Project Gutenberg Newsletter
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.60.0606070933260.32059@pglaf.org>

pt1b5.506
Weekly_June 7.txt
***The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, June 7, 2006 PT1***
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General Catalog of Old Books and Authors

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which now indexes 24,000 books available free online, including all
PG(US) & PG(Aus)'s books, along with some basic date information
about them and their authors where you can find more.

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***Progress Report, including Distributed Proofreaders


  In the first 05.00 months of this year, PG produced 1,473 new eBooks.

It took us from Jul 1971 to Oct 1998 to produce our first 1,473 eBooks!

            That's 22 WEEKS as Compared to ~27 Years!!!

                  83   New eBooks This Week
                  73   New eBooks Last Week
                 333   New eBooks This Month [May]

                 295   Average Per Month in 2006
                 266   Average Per Month in 2005 Counting 216 PGEu
                 248   Average Per Month in 2005 Not Counting PGEu
                 336   Average Per Month in 2004
                 355   Average Per Month in 2003
                 203   Average Per Month in 2002
                 103   Average Per Month in 2001

                1473   New eBooks in 2006
                3186   New eBooks in 2005  Counting 216 PGeu
             >  2970   New eBooks in 2005  Not Counting PGEu
                4049   New eBooks in 2004
                4164   New eBooks in 2003
                2441   New eBooks in 2002
                1240   New eBooks in 2001
                ====
              16,553   New eBooks Since Start Of 2001
                       That's Only 64.00 Months!
                       ~257 books per month!

              19,621  Total Project Gutenberg eBooks  [Auto-count]
              16,364   eBooks This Week Last Year
                ====
               3,257   New eBooks In Last 12 Months
                       [Incl. PGAu, PGEu & PrePrints]

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

                 318   eBooks From Project Gutenberg of Europe

                 168   Entry From Project Gutenberg PrePrints

             ~75,000   Project Gutenberg Consortia Center
                       http://www.gutenberg.cc

You may also want to look at Project Runeberg [Scandinavian]
http://runeberg.org

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Project Gutenberg began operation on July 4, 1971
Project Runeberg began operation on December 13, 1992
Distributed Proofreaders began October 22, 2000
    [Became an official PG-US site in 2002]
Project Gutenberg of Australia began in August, 2001
The Project Gutenberg Consortia Center started in 1997]
    [Became an official PG-US site in 2003]
Project Gutenberg of Europe started January 12, 2004
    [Posted first books February 26, when we met in Brussels
    to address people at the European Union Parliament.
Project Gutenberg PrePrints Started January 25, 2006
http://preprints.readingroo.ms

*

PROJECT GUTENBERG DISTRIBUTED PROOFREADERS UPDATE:

Since starting production in October 2000,
Distributed Proofreaders has contributed
8,531 Books to Project Gutenberg.
37 added this week.

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

*

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*Project Gutenberg Consortia Center Report

The PGCC collection at http://www.gutenberg.cc has doubled
in size from the listings below, but we don't have exactly
matching collection sizes yet for a new breakdown.

The number of individual eBooks now exceeds 75,000.

*

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@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

*

The new overall collection size, which has reduced the
need to account for duplications and eBooks with files
for each chapter, etc.
                                  75,000+ 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 #154 of 2006
This Completes Week #22 and Month #05.00  [364 days this year]
   210 Days/30 Weeks To Go  [We get 52 Wednesdays this year]
   379 Books To Go To #20,000
[Our production year begins/ends
1st Wednesday of the month/year]

    67   Weekly Average in 2006
    61   Weekly Average in 2005  [Counting 216 PGEu]
    57   Weekly Average in 2005  [Not Counting PGEu]
    78   Weekly Average in 2004
    79   Weekly Average in 2003
    47   Weekly Average in 2002
    24   Weekly Average in 2001

    44   Only ~45 Numbers Left On Our Reserved Numbers List
          [Used to be well over 100]
          [This listing usually from the previous week]

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***


Statistical Review

In the 22 weeks of this year, we have produced 1473 new eBooks.
It took us from 07/71 to 07/98 to produce our FIRST 1473 eBooks!!!

          That's 22 WEEKS as Compared to ~27 YEARS!!!


FLASHBACK!

Here's a sample of what books we were doing around eBook #1473

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]

Oct 1998 King Henry VI, Part 1, by William Shakespeare     [2ws01xxx.xxx] 1500
[Start of a new Shakespeare collection]
Oct 1998 Beacon Lights of History, by John Lord [V3 Part 2][32blhxxx.xxx] 1499
   [Subtitle: Renaissance and Reformation]
   [See also: #10532]
Oct 1998 Beacon Lights of History, by John Lord [V3 Part 1][31blhxxx.xxx] 1498
   [Subtitle: The Middle Ages]
   [See also: #10531]
Oct 1998 The Republic by Plato, Tr. Benjamin Jowett/see 150[repub11x.xxx] 1497

Oct 1998 Massacre at Paris, by Christopher Marlowe  [CM #5][msprsxxx.xxx] 1496
.
The Life of Christopher Columbus, by Edward Everett Hale                  1492
Oct 1998 Letters to Dead Authors, by Andrew Lang [Lang #9] [letdaxxx.xxx] 1491
Oct 1998 The New McGuffey Fourth Reader[McGuffey Reader #2][4nmcgxxx.xxx] 1490
Oct 1998 The New McGuffey First Reader [McGuffey Reader #1][1nmcgxxx.xxx] 1489
The True Story of Christopher Columbus, by Elbridge S. Brooks             1488
.
Oct 1998 Perfect Wagnerite, Commentary the Ring, by GB Shaw[sringxxx.xxx] 1487
.
Oct 1998 Forty Centuries of Ink, by David N. Carvalho      [40cnkxxx.xxx] 1483
.
The Absentee, by Maria Edgeworth                                          1473

*

Have We Given Away A Trillion Books/Dollars Yet?

If our average eBook has reached just 1% of the world population of
6,520,729,227 that would be 19,621 x 65,207,292 = ~1.28 Trillion !!!

With 19,621 eBooks online as of June 7, 2006 it now takes an average
of ~1% of the world gaining a nominal value of ~$.78 from each book.
[1% world population x #eBooks] 65,207,292 19,621 x $.78 = ~$1 Trillion
[Google "world population" "popclock" to get the most current figures.]
*

A Trillion Dollars Given Away At Just $.51 Value Per Book To 100 Million

With 19,621 eBooks online as of June 7, 2006 it now takes an average
of 100,000,000 readers gaining a nominal value of $0.51 from each book.
This "cost" is down from about $.61 when we had 16,364 eBooks a year ago.

Our Target Audience Is 1.5% Of The World Population = ~100,000,000 people.


At 19,621 eBooks in 34 Years and 11.00 Months We Averaged
       562 Per Year
        46.8 Per Month
         1.54 Per Day

At 1473 eBooks Done In The 154 Days Of 2006 We Averaged
     9.6 Per Day
      67 Per Week
     296 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.

However, for those keeping track of how quickly the U.S. reaches a
300 million population level, and who noticed the passing of 298M,
just two weeks ago. . .the U.S. is already 1/6 the way to 299M, so
it will probably be 10 more weeks to 299M and 22 more to 300M.

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].

*

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 4th was
the first Wednesday of 2006, and thus ended PG's production
year of 2005 and began the production year of 2006 at noon.

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



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pgweekly_2006_06_07_part_1b.txt

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