8 ms·

Standard Ebooks (https://standardebooks.org https://standardebooks.org) is what you’re looking for.

by nbonaparte 6y ago

CAT0 6y ago
The Internet need something like this for all languages, not only english.
- robin_reala 6y ago
  This question comes up a lot. The source to our production pipeline is GPLed and freely available,[1] but the biggest part of why we produce good work is that we have a high quality manual of style.[2] Unfortunately, that second part is very specific to English, and that’s the difficult part to replicate for other languages. [1] https://github.com/standardebooks/tools/ https://github.com/standardebooks/tools/ [2] https://standardebooks.org/manual/ https://standardebooks.org/manual/
  - bovermyer 6y ago
    I'm curious, why xhtml instead of LaTeX?
    - robin_reala 6y ago
      When we edit, we’re literally building a standard ePub3 file, which natively uses XHTML as its document representation. The pipeline then produces alternative versions of the same file. We could work in LaTeX, but it would reduce our contributor count (more people know XHTML than LaTeX) and we’d need to transform it anyway, with the potential of introducing new bugs.
  - depressedpanda 6y ago
    Not that I doubt you, but what about the manual is very specific to English and wouldn't work for other languages?
    - toast0 6y ago
      From a brief look, the typography section of the manual is definitely language specific. Different written languages often have a much different typographic convention; depending on the language, different countries using it may have major or minor differences in conventions. And of course, there are different interpretations of the convention; they've included by reference a specific version of the Chicago Manual of Style. For another language, you'd need to at least need a different exhaustive manual to reference, as well as changing or reviewing the specific guidelines. That's work that really needs to be done by a fluent, literate user of that language, hopefully with background in that language's literature and experience in copyediting, and familiarity with publishing. It's not really work you can demand of someone who did a good job (I assume) of it in English; they won't do a good job of it in another language without deep experience in that language. Developing and publishing the works in the language also needs to be done by people fluent in the language. The example of the English version can be a guide for other languages, and there's of course room for collaboration on software between languages, but asking the English language project to expand to other languages is unlikely to get good results unless the developers also are fluent in those languages.
- _hzw 6y ago
  For Japanese, we have Aozora Bunko [1] [1] https://www.aozora.gr.jp/ https://www.aozora.gr.jp/
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- pps 6y ago
  In Poland we have 5649 ebooks done so far by https://wolnelektury.pl/ https://wolnelektury.pl/
- eduardo_f 6y ago
  We're working on a fork of Standard Ebooks focusing on Spanish. We're actually looking for Spanish-speaking collaborators: https://www.libro.org/ https://www.libro.org/
robin_reala 6y ago
Arabian Nights has been on my list to produce for SE for a couple of years now, but its sheer size is imposing. I’ll probably do it in the not too distant future though.
- 0-_-0 6y ago
  Did you produce the Edgar Allan Poe Short Fiction collection? I'm reading it right now, it's great! And huge! https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/edgar-allan-poe/short-fiction https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/edgar-allan-poe/short-fict...
  - robin_reala 6y ago
    Yep! Glad you’re enjoying it. Here are my share of the SE productions: https://www.robinwhittleton.com/books/ https://www.robinwhittleton.com/books/ Biggest so far (and biggest on SE at 1.2m words) has been Samuel Pepys’ Diary: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/samuel-pepys/the-diary https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/samuel-pepys/the-diary
    - 0-_-0 6y ago
      Thank you for your efforts! That book is more than 2600 pages! How long did that take?
      - robin_reala 6y ago
        Nearly two years, but I took a bunch of time out to work on smaller pieces. The biggest problem was that Gutenberg had only transcribed about a third of the footnotes, so I spent a long time adding the remaining ones back in.
        0-_-0 6y ago
        So you were transcribing a diary written in a shorthand? Or from a print version?
altgans 6y ago
Is there an archive of the whole collection? My internet is unreliable and I usually try to get everything offline.

Standard Ebooks (https://standardebooks.org https://standardebooks.org) is what you’re looking for.

CAT0 6y ago

The Internet need something like this for all languages, not only english.

robin_reala 6y ago
This question comes up a lot. The source to our production pipeline is GPLed and freely available,[1] but the biggest part of why we produce good work is that we have a high quality manual of style.[2] Unfortunately, that second part is very specific to English, and that’s the difficult part to replicate for other languages. [1] https://github.com/standardebooks/tools/ https://github.com/standardebooks/tools/ [2] https://standardebooks.org/manual/ https://standardebooks.org/manual/
- bovermyer 6y ago
  I'm curious, why xhtml instead of LaTeX?
  - robin_reala 6y ago
    When we edit, we’re literally building a standard ePub3 file, which natively uses XHTML as its document representation. The pipeline then produces alternative versions of the same file. We could work in LaTeX, but it would reduce our contributor count (more people know XHTML than LaTeX) and we’d need to transform it anyway, with the potential of introducing new bugs.
- depressedpanda 6y ago
  Not that I doubt you, but what about the manual is very specific to English and wouldn't work for other languages?
  - toast0 6y ago
    From a brief look, the typography section of the manual is definitely language specific. Different written languages often have a much different typographic convention; depending on the language, different countries using it may have major or minor differences in conventions. And of course, there are different interpretations of the convention; they've included by reference a specific version of the Chicago Manual of Style. For another language, you'd need to at least need a different exhaustive manual to reference, as well as changing or reviewing the specific guidelines. That's work that really needs to be done by a fluent, literate user of that language, hopefully with background in that language's literature and experience in copyediting, and familiarity with publishing. It's not really work you can demand of someone who did a good job (I assume) of it in English; they won't do a good job of it in another language without deep experience in that language. Developing and publishing the works in the language also needs to be done by people fluent in the language. The example of the English version can be a guide for other languages, and there's of course room for collaboration on software between languages, but asking the English language project to expand to other languages is unlikely to get good results unless the developers also are fluent in those languages.
_hzw 6y ago
For Japanese, we have Aozora Bunko [1] [1] https://www.aozora.gr.jp/ https://www.aozora.gr.jp/
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
pps 6y ago
In Poland we have 5649 ebooks done so far by https://wolnelektury.pl/ https://wolnelektury.pl/
eduardo_f 6y ago
We're working on a fork of Standard Ebooks focusing on Spanish. We're actually looking for Spanish-speaking collaborators: https://www.libro.org/ https://www.libro.org/

robin_reala 6y ago

Arabian Nights has been on my list to produce for SE for a couple of years now, but its sheer size is imposing. I’ll probably do it in the not too distant future though.

0-_-0 6y ago
Did you produce the Edgar Allan Poe Short Fiction collection? I'm reading it right now, it's great! And huge! https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/edgar-allan-poe/short-fiction https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/edgar-allan-poe/short-fict...
- robin_reala 6y ago
  Yep! Glad you’re enjoying it. Here are my share of the SE productions: https://www.robinwhittleton.com/books/ https://www.robinwhittleton.com/books/ Biggest so far (and biggest on SE at 1.2m words) has been Samuel Pepys’ Diary: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/samuel-pepys/the-diary https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/samuel-pepys/the-diary
  - 0-_-0 6y ago
    Thank you for your efforts! That book is more than 2600 pages! How long did that take?
    - robin_reala 6y ago
      Nearly two years, but I took a bunch of time out to work on smaller pieces. The biggest problem was that Gutenberg had only transcribed about a third of the footnotes, so I spent a long time adding the remaining ones back in.
      - 0-_-0 6y ago
        So you were transcribing a diary written in a shorthand? Or from a print version?

altgans 6y ago

Is there an archive of the whole collection? My internet is unreliable and I usually try to get everything offline.