Ebook

“ From April 2002 to October 2003, in 18 months, the collection of ebooks doubled, going from eBook #5000 to eBook #10000, with an average of 348 new ebooks per month in 2003. The fast growth was the hard work of Distributed Proofreaders, now going at full speed to digitize books and share the proofreading of ebooks between many volunteers. ”

“ It became easier to circulate etexts and recruit volunteers. From 1991 to 1996, the number of ebooks doubled every year, with one ebook per month in 1991, two ebooks per month in 1992, four ebooks per month in 1993, and eight ebooks per month in 1994. ”

“ Writing of etext readers, I am reminded that I recently joked to a volunteer that I wanted him to write software for reading etexts, whereby a hologram would appear on the inside of my eyelids so that I could read etexts with my eyes closed. Who knows, it might be possible. However, whatever advances in technology occur over the next ten years, one thing is certain: the work of all the volunteers to date will ensure that there is an amazing library of ebooks available covering creative works by some of the greatest minds who have ever lived. ”

“ More and more digital books are in ePub format, widely used by publishers to distribute their ebooks, because it is designed for reflowable content, meaning that the text display can be optimized for the particular display device used by the reader: computer with a large screen, ebook reader with a medium screen, and smartphone with a small screen. The format is meant to function as a single format that publishers and conversion houses can use in-house, as well as for distribution and sale. The PDF files created with recent versions of Adobe Acrobat are compatible with the ePub format. ”

“ I see a huge expansion of digital reading with tablets that are easy to use and with a very large choice of ebooks thanks to electronic commerce and companies like Amazon. (...) I also use online books to learn the art of innovation! ”

“ For starters, let me try to summarize the lessons and intuitions I've had about ebooks from my release of two novels and most of a short story collection online under a Creative Commons license. A parodist who published a list of alternate titles for the presentations at this event called this talk, "eBooks Suck Right Now," [eBooks suck right now] and as funny as that is, I don't think it's true. ”

“ Ebooks are good at being everywhere in the world at the same time for free in a form that is so malleable that you can just pastebomb it into your IM session or turn it into a page-a-day mailing list. ”

“ But ebooks *shouldn't* be just about marketing: ebooks are a goal unto themselves. In the final analysis, more people will read more words off more screens and fewer words off fewer pages and when those two lines cross, ebooks are gonna have to be the way that writers earn their keep, not the way that they promote the dead-tree editions. ”

“ This collection of Project Gutenberg eBooks also includes two sets of mobile viewer files for Kindles, Nooks and others using .mobi or .epub formats. There is no index included for the .mobi or .epub files as your mobile viewer will automatially list the title names of the new files. ”

“ Thus, we do not necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: http://www.gutenberg.org This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. ”

“ Or, rather, should it not be read in an old edition?
Good editions of good books, though they may often be expensive, can not be too highly commended. One can turn to a page in inviting letterpress so much easier than to a page of an unattractive volume. The fine shades of meaning stand out more clearly, and the thought is revealed more intelligibly when clothed in fitting typographical garb. Often it becomes a positive labor to follow many a pleasing author in the small or worn types and poor paper with which the publisher mercilessly thrusts him into the world. ”

“ The most distinctive thing about a book is the possibility that someone may read it. Is this a truism? Evidently not; for the publishers, who print books, and the libraries, which store and distribute them, have never thought it worth their while to collect and record information bearing on this possibility. In the publisher’s or the bookseller’s advertising announcements, as well as on the catalogue cards stored in the library’s trays, the reader may ascertain when and where the book was published, the number of pages, and whether it contains plates or maps ”

“ Although emphasizing novels, Fiction Core Collection includes some short story and novella collections. Pt. 1 is an author catalog, and entries include publication information; plot summary or list of contents; and extracts from reviews, literary dictionaries, or a publisher’s description. Pt. 2 is a title and subject index. Designed as a selection aid for libraries and thus emphasizing established authors, Fiction Core Collection is useful to the literary researcher needing to identify novels about a topic or representing a genre or literary form. ”

“ Roberto Hernández Montoya, an editor of the electronic magazine Venezuela Analítica, wrote in September 1998: "The printed text can't be replaced, at least not for the foreseeable future. The paper book is a tremendous 'machine'. We can't leaf through an electronic book in the same way as a paper book. ”

“ The quest of the book that is out of print, and must be had at second hand by diligent search and patient waiting, is an exceptional delight. Nevertheless, a special and more accessible pleasure lies in the catalogue, whether of a publisher or a bookshop. All but a handful of us are certain to come upon titles that kindle the imagination or rekindle the memory. ”

“ One of the most difficult questions to settle in these days in the selection of books for a library or in directing the reading of the young is, how large shall be the proportion of fiction in a library or in the reading of any one. Just now we are flooded with fiction, stretching from the short story of the magazine to the two-volume novel. ”

“ Some newsletters, zines and journals started online from scratch, skipping a print version.
Authors began creating websites to self-publish their work or post it while waiting to find a publisher. Communication with readers became easier through email, forums, chat and instant messaging. Some authors explored new ways of writing, called hypertext literature. ”

“ Between the rude screw-press of Gutenberg or Caxton, slow and laboured in its working, to the first-class printing machine of our own day, throwing off its fifteen or eighteen thousand copies of a large four-page journal in an hour, what a stride has been taken in the noble art! Step by step, slowly but surely, has the advance been made,—one improvement suggested after another at long intervals, and by various minds. ”

“ Every librarian of experience, every administrator of traveling libraries, will recall such instances. One boy comes upon the right book, and the current of his life is changed; another reads a volume, and in his brain germinates the seed that blossoms into a great invention; in a chance hour of reading, a third finds in a page, a phrase, a word, the inspiration whose expression sets aflame the world. ”

“ I mean one in which any popular books, tending to moral and intellectual improvement, shall be furnished in such numbers of copies that many persons can be reading the same book at the same time; in short, that not only the best books of all sorts, but the pleasant literature of the day, shall be made accessible to the whole people when they most care for it, that is, when it is fresh and new. ”

“ You will readily see, therefore, that in order to select a new library it is necessary to have forty or fifty approved and unassigned books to choose from, and never is a set made up with its fairy tales, pictures of sweet domestic life, stories of adventure, simple history and biography, short stories, long stories, fact and fancy, humor and pathos—never is a set made up, preliminary to starting out upon its first visit, without my mouth watering to read them all myself. ”

“ It is a very serious business, this book-collecting. Whether we are contented now to let our library be slow of growth, or whether we are still imbued with the ardour of our early youth, we are none the less under the spell of books. Our paths may lie outside the pale of book-land for years, but the chance handling of a valuable or scarce volume will instantly awaken all our bibliophilic desires. ”

“ A preliminary lesson may consist of a simple demonstration of the purpose and means of access to the library—its divisions, cataloguing and classification, and an exercise in finding books; and this may be followed by other lessons on the making, use and care of books; and other lessons may follow on reference work, subject-hunting, the use of periodical indexes, bibliographical aids, dictionaries, maps, etc. They must be purely objective to succeed, and everything described should be placed before the children. ”

“ A reader seeking a book of a known author, in the vast majority of cases, wants simply the number by which to call for it, and can find it much sooner in a brief title catalogue. In the rare cases where more is needed the class number refers instantly to all these facts on the cards. On the other hand, a reader seeking books on a known subject, needs the full title, imprint, cross-references, and notes, to enable him to choose the book best suited to his wants. ”

“ Literature, after all, is simply all that's printed. In print are found the sum of the experience and observation of the whole race. Out of this print it is the librarian's business to help his fellows to draw such facts and suggestions as may aid them in their work. ”

“ The great object of a Public library is despatch in procuring books. This can only be secured by perspicuity in describing them. In my humble judgment no better mode could possibly be devised for obtaining any particular work than the printed tickets which I suggested in 1837, and which are now in use. By specifying the Titles from the Catalogue, and copying from it the Press-marks, the applicant can at once identify the particular edition or copy of an edition which he requires. ”

“ My books are everything to me; and you know what book borrowers are. My friends are welcome to tap my literary resources, but it must be through me as medium. When a seeker after knowledge calls upon me I select from my library the appropriate volume and read or recite to him such passages as appear to me most applicable to his case. ”

“ The very best way of bringing new books to the attention of readers is to print a list of additions, with call-numbers, as condensed as possible, and with no other matter, for free distribution in the library. ”

“ As soon as Writing occurs in a portable form, whether as cylinders of baked clay in Assyria, or as tablets of bark, wood or wax, or as sheets of parchment or paper, there is a volume, and there is the possibility of a collection of books which forms a Library. ”

“ Following an admirably clear explanation of the basics of online searching are chapters on general literary reference sources (including some devoted to individual writers) ; library catalogs; print and electronic bibliographies, indexes, and annual reviews (again, with some devoted to individual writers) ; scholarly journals; seventeenth-century periodicals; resources for studying the contemporary reception of a writer or a work; manuscripts and archives; genres; translations and lexicons; microform and digital collections ”

“ My e-texts may prove convenient substitutes for hard-to-get works in a course where both instructor and students accept the possibility of some imperfections in the text, but if you are writing a scholarly article, dissertation, or book, you should use the standard hard-copy editions of any works you cite. ”

“ All publishing houses employ “readers” outside of those in their own offices for the reading of manuscripts on special subjects. One of these “outside readers” was given a manuscript for criticism. He took it home and began its reading. He had finished only a hundred pages or so when, by a curious coincidence, the card of the author of the manuscript was brought to the “reader.” The men were close friends.
Hastily gathering up the manuscript, the critic shoved the work into a drawer of his desk, and asked that his friend be shown in. ”

“ We may perhaps look forward to the day when all the bound books in the library will be for home use, and will give information at second hand, too late for the business man to act promptly on it. The real sources of up to date knowledge will be, as they often are now, manuscript letters, circulars, newspaper clippings and trade catalogs. With their inevitable index they form a huge encyclopedia, absolutely up to date. ”

“ A writer of this stamp, I confess, appears to me as much superior to a common bookworm, as a library of real books is superior to a mere book-case, painted and lettered on the outside with the names of celebrated works. ”

“ To all of whom we have hitherto been speaking, a correct description of books is most essential: and by half of them, at least, old books, such as we have been examining, are frequently consulted. On the other hand, the library is frequented by many who only acquire the books of most easy description, and by many who come but for books of amusement. ”

“ But there is something more important than persiflage and gossip—there is the new novel to choose from the circulating library. For in the country the bookstall man is also the librarian and adviser; he not only sells papers but he controls the reading of the neighbourhood. ”