Distributed Proofreaders Completes 10,000th Book

Juliet Sutherland wrote in email on Friday:

Today Distributed Proofreaders (DP) posted a package of texts that takes us over 10,000 completed titles. I'm very proud of our community of volunteers who have accomplished this beautiful number. The 10K package (listed below) showcases the wide range of our volunteers' interests and talents. For those of you who may not know, DP makes accurate e-text transcriptions of public domain printed material. The results of our efforts are available in html and plain text formats, primarily through Project Gutenberg (PG). Scanning and raw OCR are the first step in digitizing printed material. DP takes the next step to make accurate versions that can be reflowed, re-sized, cut and pasted, accurately searched, analyzed and so on.

For those who like numbers, the 10,000 titles represent around 3 million pages. We have produced books in over 20 languages and just under 15% of our production is in languages other than English. About 700 volunteers login each day, and about 3000 different volunteers login over a 30 day period. We have approximately 5600 projects in some stage of preparation.

...DP is one of the oldest examples of peer production on the 'net.

This last point is important. People are all excited about Amazon's Mechanical Turk, but Distributed Proofreaders pioneered that same methodology of breaking up a large task into small units that are farmed out to large numbers of volunteers. (Volunteer here.) Juliet continued:

Please have a look at these ebooks. I think you'll be impressed.

Species Plantarum: Monandria, Diandria and Triandria  by Carolus Linnaeus (Carl von Linné) 1753   Latin  first three sections of the classic botanical reference work-JS

Agriculture for beginners, Rev. ed. by Charles William Burkett, Frank Lincoln Stevens, and Daniel Harvey Hill. 1914   a textbook-JS

Marchand de Venise by Shakespeare, trans. by M. Guizot. original 1821, transcribed edition 1862   French

The Shanty Book, Part I, Sailor Shanties by Richard Runciman Terry (1864-1938)  1921  includes music to listen to-JS

The annals of the Cakchiquels: The original text, with a translation, notes, and introduction by Francisco Ernantez Arana (fl. 1582), trans. by and edit. by Daniel G. Brinton (1837-1899)  1885   English/Cakchiquel Mayan  check out the side-by-side translation-JS

Encyclopedia of Needlework, by Therese de Dillmont  originally from 1884  still in print although we worked from an old version. Amazing illustrations, huge file-JS

R. Caldecott's First Collection of Pictures and Songs by Randolph Caldecott.  [1900-1909?]  8 of his most popular books-JS

Sylva, or, A Discourse of Forest-Trees by John Evelyn  (1620-1706)  1664

Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920  the 280th issue DP has completed.-JS

Heimatlos by Johanna Spyri, 1890 German

Heidi by Johanna Spyri, trans. Elisabeth P. Stork, with an intro by Charles Wharton Stork, A.M. PhD, Illustrations by Maria L. Kirk. Gift edition. 1919  great illustrations-JS

Triplanetary, by E.E. Smith  1934  this version has not been reprinted-JS

Como atravessei Àfrica (v. II), by Alexandre Alberto da Rocha de Serpa Pinto (aka Serpa Pinto)  1881 Portuguese

Eighth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1886-1887, ed. John Wesley Powell  part of an ongoing effort to transcribe all of these important works about Native Americans-JS

Slave Narratives, Oklahoma (A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves)  Works Project Administration Federal Writer's Project 1936-1938  Part of another ongoing project which is now over half complete-JS

Note that some of these books are still in print, but out of copyright. This is a good example of the nuance with which we need to approach discussions of book digitization. There are many works that are still useful that are out of copyright. But what DP and Project Gutenberg is doing is a great service even if these books are still in print, since they are now computer-accessible. The digital version is another valuable manifestation, just like you might have a hardback, a paperback, and an audio version of the same book.

(The variety in the list also shows the range of what's now available in Gutenberg. There are two books I own in there, the Encyclopedia of Needlework (which is as amazing as Juliet says), and Triplanetary, the first of E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman series. I loved these books as a kid -- turgid and jingoistic as they are, they sure fired the imagination of a twelve-year old -- and I'm now the proud owner of a signed first edition. (That is, of the first book edition, as these stories were originally published serially in pulp magazines.))