PG Monthly Newsletter (2008-10-21)

by Michael Cook on October 21, 2008
Newsletters

pgmonthly_2008_09_16.txt
 The Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter, Sep. 21, 2008
 ****eBooks Readable by Both Humans and Computers since July 4, 1971****

http://www.gutenberg.org

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You may not have received this on time, due to problems with the mailer 
program, and/or you might receive extra copies, as I am trying alternative 
routes and CEO Newby may also try to send this out.  My apologies.  mh


50 Months to The End of the World Via Mayan Calendaring on December 21, 2012 
[some now saying October 11, 2011]

This leaves 4 1/4 years, 17 seasons, or 50 months.

Not to worry.  I will still make predictions further on.



New Project Gutenberg Landmarks


We just passed 200 books in Spanish at:

http://www.gutenberg.org

and there are more at:

http://www.gutenberg.cc




Grand Total of About 30,000 Books made by Project Gutenberg



30,000 eBooks:  About The Same As Average Public Libraries!

We are rapidly approaching 30,000 eBooks in the originating Project Gutenberg 
collections, as differentiated from those eBooks originating with other eBook 
producers located at an alternate site to the original 
http://www.gutenberg.org, at http://www.gutenberg.cc which has over 75,000 
eBooks.

We should pass 30,000 before the end of the year, as below.



Please note that PrePrints now has over 2,000 eBooks!!!



Chinese Moves Into The Project Gutenberg "Top 5"


As you will notice in the language list below, Chinese will apparently be 
moving up to our 4th place language, counting non-English eBooks.

We still need more help in cataloging these eBooks, but the latest 300 or so 
Chinese eBooks are now in PrePrints.

Anyone who can work in Chinese is encouraged to look into a directory called 
/china in PrePrints, or get the .zip file, from one directory above to get all 
the files downloaded in one single command.

http://preprints.readingroo.ms

first one on the list:

/china

.zip of whole bunch is one directory up, get china.zip

The current list, NOT counting the new 307 PrePrints:

Grand total for today: 26867 [Yesterday, mail problems]

22863   English en
1289    French  fr
549     German  de
470     Finnish fi
359     Dutch   nl
344     Chinese zh
260     Portuguese      pt
207     Spanish es
159     Italian it


When we get all 307 possible titles online, that will bring Chinese up to a 
total of 666, which will place it second of our non-English languages 
collection which is approximately where it should go, given Internet language 
dispersal.

Please note that even without counting these 307, a Chinese eBook total is 
already approaching that of Dutch, which has been in our Top 5 for years.

The times are changing, and we can either lead or follow.

Believe it or not, Spanish is listed as the third language, with regard to its 
use on the entire Internet so that's the 

next goal, to bring Spanish to out Top 5.

In reference to that goal, I am giving a presentation for a new combination of 
Internet efforts called "Both Americas,"
in Buenos Aires early next Spring, followed by what I would hope will be a 
similar conference in France.  India has had one or more problems with getting 
an actual invitation sent to me, and since their current conference will be 
over less than a month from now, I will not be able to attend even if such an 
invitation is issue at the last moment unless it is of such an unusual nature 
that I can't turn it down and may have to interrupt another trip I have now 
scheduled during, and including the same period, the coming month.

This is the second time a conference hosted by people I had contact with in 
India has not worked out due to inabilities to get things organized in a 
manner that does not cost me a great deal of time and money, neither of which 
I have great amounts of to invest in any but the wisest of manners.

I fear the conference in France may be headed the direction it was headed in 
last year, much as did the other one I had mentioned above, but right now I 
can't say for sure that it is either going to actually happen, or that I may 
speak.

Something I should mention about possible conferences:

If all the plans are not made, tickets purchased, arranged, etc., so that I 
can at least expect to break even on trips, at least one month in advance, the 
odds of my attending the conference fall very rapidly to zero.  So far the 
only ones keeping up their end of the bargain are the "Both Americas"
hosting the conference in Buenos Aires, so that appears the only conference I 
am certain to attend in six months.

Greg Newby and I have made an attempt to set up one of few, very few, 
conference appearances with a joint presentation, but we haven't heard a word 
back from that one either, so I won't even mention it at the moment.

Project Gutenberg just doesn't have the money for us to get to conferences 
where we would lose money in the process.




Our All Time Hottest Requests!!!!!!!



FLASH RAM


I am looking for the earliest flash RAM possible.

The very earliest were PCMCIA cards, such as used for the Poqet computer, etc.

The earliest USB flash drives were Disgo/Dizgo, M-Systems and these were OEMed 
by IBM, HP, etc. They are particular in a recognizable fashion because their 
snapon connectors resemble the connectors of jigsaw puzzles.




POWERPOINT


We need someone who can do PowerPoint illustrations.

One in particular, building a 3-D box of 1,000 dominoes.


///


Additional Newsletter Services


In addition, we will provide the PG Canada Newsletter and totals from PG of 
Australia, Europe, PrePrints, etc.

You should notice that we had a very good month, with 100 books done nearly 
every single week.


These totals do NOT include 75,000+ at:

http://www.gutenberg.cc

Where there are eBooks representing over 100 languages.



These are the various totals from the ~30,000 at:

http://www.gutenberg.org

and our other Project Gutenberg Sites

[Yesterday's message, no mail coming in right now, but if I send this two 
different ways, I think ONE of them will get to you.]


      day       | cnt 
----------------+-----
 Mon 2008-10-13 |   8
 Tue 2008-10-14 |  12
 Wed 2008-10-15 |   4
 Thu 2008-10-16 |   9
 Fri 2008-10-17 |   5
 Sat 2008-10-18 |  16
 Sun 2008-10-19 |  10

Thanks to Marcello Perathoner!



Here are the current language totals
for languages with over 100 eBooks.
[Again, from yesterday]

Grand total for today: 26,867 [ - 26570 =] +297

22,863 [ - 22,670 =] + 193     English en
 1,289 [ -  1,243 =] +  46     French  fr
   549 [ -    542 =] +   7     German  de
   470 [ -    464 =] +   6     Finnish fi
   359 [ -    357 =] +   2     Dutch   nl
   359 [ -    320 =] +  39     Chinese zh  [+307 PP]
   260 [ -    253 =] +   7     Portuguese pt
   207 [ -    202 =] +   5     Spanish es
   159 [ -    155 =] +   4     Italian it

etc.,etc.,etc.

Total increase       + 297     All Reported Lanugages


Thanks to Greg Newby!


And From Project Gutenberg Sites Worldwide


26,867  +   297  10/20/08  PG General Automated Count
 1,706  +    14  10/20/08  PG Australia
   530  +     7  10/20/08  PG Europe
 2,461  + 1,777  10/20/08  PG PrePrints
   177  +    13  09/30/08  PG Canada
======
31,741  + 2,108  by various automated counts and newsletters

Note:  Without counting PrePrints, we are still under 30K, and some of the new 
.lit collection will not make it under our current rules of addition from 
PrePrints, and would be deleted from PrePrints without moving to other 
listings.

Note:  There are perhaps 100 eBooks not listed here that are already in 
circulation from Project Gutenberg.

Note:  PG Canada includes English, French, and Italian.


///


Here is how we ended 2007

The combined PG projects had produced a total of 26,161 

titles.


The most number of books posted...
 ...in one day was 65 on the 26th December  ...in one week was 151 in Week 18 
(week ending 9th May)  ...in one month was 477 in November

We averaged
338 per month [Over 4,000 for the year]
 78 per week
 11.13 per day

99 titles were newly REposted to the new filing system, 

bringing us almost to the 2,000 mark.


Here is a small selection of project milestones;

TOTAL "Original Project Gutenberg eBooks" equals about the number of books in 
the average U.S. public library

 * 31,500 on 2008/10/21 [not an error, 1,777 PrePrints]
 * 30,000 on 2008/10/21
 * 29,500 on 2008/09/19
 * 29,000 ~~ Calculating
 * 28,500 ~~ Calculating
 * 28,000 ~~ 2008/05/16
 * 27,500 on 2008/04/05
 * 27,000 ~~ 2008/02/29
 * 26,500 on 2008/01/26
 * 26,000 on 2007/12/24
 * 25,000 on 2007/10/12
 * 24,000 on 2007/07/10
 * 23,000 on 2007/04/15

PG-AU
 * 1,700 on 2008/10/10
 * 1,600 on 2008/02/08
 * 1,500 on 2007/04/07

PG Canada
 * 175 on 2008/09/30
 * 100 on 2008/03/25
 * 110 on 2008/04/17




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pgmonthly_2008_10_21.txt

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