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I like the idea of git for ebooks. That being said, a lot of the free books available from project gutenberg have been around for quite some time. Besides tran

I like the idea of git for ebooks. That being said, a lot of the free books available from project gutenberg have been around for quite some time. Besides translations, what can people besides the author contribute? Doesn't it, on some level, ruin the character of these books? If you look at a non-fiction book from 80 years ago, is it worth bothering to correct the information when you can probably find it at your fingertips on wikipedia?

gavinpc 12y ago
Like others, I am doubtful that this is the best way to go about it. But to answer your question, the main area where I've found Project Gutenberg's epubs could be improved is in their navigation outline (the toc.ncx file). For example, they often use top-level headings for each line from the title page, then put the entire book under the last line. Whereas other books are closer to what you'd expect, albeit at inconsistent levels of detail. For my project, I abandoned their TOC's altogether and created a simpler format. The images are also at a bare-minimum of resolution. In some cases, higher-quality versions are available in the public domain (such as on Wikimedia Commons). Most of the books are also scanned on archive.org, and so can be referenced there in facsimile. These tend to be higher-resolution scans (although those are all monochrome that I've seen). For corrections in the works proper, I have occasionally submitted corrections by email but never received a response. Otherwise, they are perfect, and I thank them for their outstanding work. EDIT: There are also rare cases (I think Seneca was the one I came across) where the id's are not unique across the book, even if they are within the HTML files. I couldn't find anywhere in the EPUB specification that would require this, yet for practical purposes I think they should be made unique across the book, since the division into HTML files is arbitrary. Further to that, there are some PG books that have a unique (serial) ID on every paragraph. Again, this is not required, but it's extremely helpful when it's there (for anchor referencing). It would make the whole library more usable if this were applied consistently, and the serial id's are apparently mechanically applied.
sethish 12y ago
There are a number of transcription errors in many books. There is an example PR https://github.com/GITenberg/Chess-Strategy_5614/pull/1 https://github.com/GITenberg/Chess-Strategy_5614/pull/1
taejo 12y ago
I've noticed several problems recurring in Gutenberg ebooks. Mistakes in the words per se are rare, but: * substitutes for characters missing from ASCII (e.g. L for £, no proper dashes) * incorrectly delimited chapter heads (e.g.: *CHAPTER 11: THE GREAT* BOONDOGGLE George Boondoggle sat on his lawn... instead of *CHAPTER 11: THE GREAT BOONDOGGLE* George Boondoggle sat on his lawn...) * footnotes appearing in the middle of a page (based on the pagination of the original print edition, perhaps) * missing italics, underlines, etc. * ASCII-fied equations and diagrams These do not detract from PG's original goal of being an archive of plain text, and suffice to provide scholars of the 22nd century a good view of what was written in the 19th, but they do detract from the experience of somebody who just wants to read Anna Karenina for fun. (Especially if they are a typography nerd like me)

gavinpc 12y ago

Like others, I am doubtful that this is the best way to go about it. But to answer your question, the main area where I've found Project Gutenberg's epubs could be improved is in their navigation outline (the toc.ncx file). For example, they often use top-level headings for each line from the title page, then put the entire book under the last line. Whereas other books are closer to what you'd expect, albeit at inconsistent levels of detail. For my project, I abandoned their TOC's altogether and created a simpler format. The images are also at a bare-minimum of resolution. In some cases, higher-quality versions are available in the public domain (such as on Wikimedia Commons). Most of the books are also scanned on archive.org, and so can be referenced there in facsimile. These tend to be higher-resolution scans (although those are all monochrome that I've seen). For corrections in the works proper, I have occasionally submitted corrections by email but never received a response. Otherwise, they are perfect, and I thank them for their outstanding work. EDIT: There are also rare cases (I think Seneca was the one I came across) where the id's are not unique across the book, even if they are within the HTML files. I couldn't find anywhere in the EPUB specification that would require this, yet for practical purposes I think they should be made unique across the book, since the division into HTML files is arbitrary. Further to that, there are some PG books that have a unique (serial) ID on every paragraph. Again, this is not required, but it's extremely helpful when it's there (for anchor referencing). It would make the whole library more usable if this were applied consistently, and the serial id's are apparently mechanically applied.

sethish 12y ago

There are a number of transcription errors in many books. There is an example PR https://github.com/GITenberg/Chess-Strategy_5614/pull/1 https://github.com/GITenberg/Chess-Strategy_5614/pull/1

taejo 12y ago

I've noticed several problems recurring in Gutenberg ebooks. Mistakes in the words per se are rare, but: * substitutes for characters missing from ASCII (e.g. L for £, no proper dashes) * incorrectly delimited chapter heads (e.g.: *CHAPTER 11: THE GREAT* BOONDOGGLE George Boondoggle sat on his lawn... instead of *CHAPTER 11: THE GREAT BOONDOGGLE* George Boondoggle sat on his lawn...) * footnotes appearing in the middle of a page (based on the pagination of the original print edition, perhaps) * missing italics, underlines, etc. * ASCII-fied equations and diagrams These do not detract from PG's original goal of being an archive of plain text, and suffice to provide scholars of the 22nd century a good view of what was written in the 19th, but they do detract from the experience of somebody who just wants to read Anna Karenina for fun. (Especially if they are a typography nerd like me)