[1] From: Ted Parkinson <parkinsn@mcmail.CIS.McMaster.CA> (28)
Subject: Re: 9.751 e-texts and scholarship
[2] From: Richard Tuerk <Richard_Tuerk@etsu.edu> (26)
Subject: etexts and scholarship
[3] From: Dennis Cintra Leite <Dennis@eaesp.fgvsp.br> (53)
Subject: RE: 9.751 e-texts and scholarship
[4] From: davidr@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (45)
Subject: etexts and scholarhip
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 21:59:35 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ted Parkinson <parkinsn@mcmail.CIS.McMaster.CA>
Subject: Re: 9.751 e-texts and scholarship
On Wed, 24 Apr 1996, Humanist wrote:
> [1] From: "Peter Graham, RUL" <psgraham@gandalf.rutgers.edu> (10)
> Subject: Re: 9.741 e-texts and scholarship
>
> Ted Parkinson said, i.a.,
> >Dissemination is great, but you have changed topics. I don't think
> anyone has said Project Gutenberg is a bad thing; it's quite valuable.<
>
> Could you describe why Project Gutenberg is "quite valuable"? In what way?
> I've understood it to be otherwise, comprising as it does unreliable,
> unattributed, unmarked-up texts. I've pressed M. Hart (its proprietor) for
> information on who uses it and how, but he steadfastly refuses to respond to
> such questions. I wonder if you could help. --pg
>
> Peter Graham psgraham@gandalf.rutgers.edu Rutgers University Libraries
> 169 College Ave., New Brunswick, NJ 08903 (908)445-5908; fax (908)445-5888
> <URL:http://aultnis.rutgers.edu/pghome.html>
Well, I don't mean it's valuable in a scholarly sense; I can't imagine
anyone citing any of these texts in a serious article. However, most
people on the "web" aren't scholars. I've only visited the site a couple
of times, but it contains a large and interesting selection, and I think
it is "valuable" to the average reader wanting to skim through a variety
of texts. I have no idea what percentage of people who download these
works actually read them on their computer. I liken it to a rather
cluttered used book shop, where awful editions abound, only it's not as
dusty.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ted Parkinson
Department of English
McMaster University parkinsn@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca
Hamilton, Ontario
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1996 08:03:44 -0600
From: Richard Tuerk <Richard_Tuerk@etsu.edu>
Subject: etexts and scholarship
On 4/25 Peter Graham wrote in part:
>Could you describe why Project Gutenberg is "quite valuable"? In what way?
>I've understood it to be otherwise, comprising as it does unreliable,
>unattributed, unmarked-up texts. I've pressed M. Hart (its proprietor) for
>information on who uses it and how, but he steadfastly refuses to respond to
>such questions. I wonder if you could help. --pg
>
These texts seem valuable in a number of ways. First, and most obvious,
they are much easier to use for word searches than concordances are. True,
whatever one finds in them, one has to verify against more reliable
versions of the texts. Still, for one who is interested in things like
trying to figure out precise definitions at work in a particular text,
trying to trace image patterns, hunting for certain syntactic structures,
the etexts are extremely useful.
Second, they make finding quotations extremely easy. If, for example, I'm
working with _Alice in Wonderland_, and I discover that I've forgotten to
note the location of a particular quotation, I can find it in a matter of
seconds using my etext version. Then, all I have to do is use the location
in the etext to locate it in a more reliable hard copy version.
Someday, I guess, when scanning technology is better, the etexts will be
every bit as reliable as the so-called standard hard copy texts now are.
(How reliable they are is a matter of debate still; look at the material
inserted into _The Blithedale Romance_ that Hawthorne omitted in published
versions during his lifetime.)
Richard Tuerk
East Texas State U
Richard_Tuerk@etsu.edu
--[3]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 14:43:55 -0300
From: Dennis Cintra Leite <Dennis@eaesp.fgvsp.br>
Subject: RE: 9.751 e-texts and scholarship
I, for one, have read several of Project Gutenberg's e-texts. I've copied
many of them on disquetes and given them away to friends. I don't
particularly give a d... if they are "unreliable, unattributed,
unmarked-up texts". I'm not a medieval monk who dedicates his life to
minutiae. If I want to read Thoreau's Walden or Hardy's Tess of the
d'Urbervilles for the sheer joy of it (obviously many scholars have lost
the capacity for doing this) the text needn't be pristine. An
approximation is more than enough. Thus, to me, friends and other such
unscholarly riffraff who've savored M.Harts offerings, Project Gutenberg
is "quite valuable".
Dennis
----------
dennis cintra leite
dennis@eaesp.fgvsp.br
sao paulo business school (eaesp/fgv)
snail mail:av.9 de julho 2029
sao paulo, sp 01313-902
brazil
py2-etn
--[4]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 12:48:38 -0600
From: davidr@phoenix.Princeton.EDU
Subject: etexts and scholarhip
Peter Graham said,
Could you describe why Project Gutenberg is "quite Valuable"? In What way? I've
understood it to be otherwise, comprising as it does unreliable, unattributed,
unmarked-up texts. I've pressed M. Hart (its proprietor) for information on who
uses it and how, but he steadfastly refuses to respond to such question. I
wonder if you could help. -pg
I am the one who seemed to have started this haradda@aol.com with my questions
about scholarship and etexts. My position is this that anything that gets
people to read is a good thing. And putting them out on the net so that people
can use them for whatever purposes (reading, discussion, writing school papers,
scholarship) is a good thing. If you think otherwise the ghost of Benjamin
Franklin should haunt you forever.
I not only download etexts from Project Gutenberg on a regular basis I also go
through the various etext sites OBI, Wiretap i.e., on a weekly basis.
Downloading several texts daily. In addition I have put my money where my mouth
is and I have purchased copies of the Project Gutenberg CD's as they come out
quarterly for both my own person library and for the elementary, middle school,
high school libraries where my children go to school, and the branch public
library which my family uses. My children and there friends all come to me and
my library and copy books that they can use to write school papers. Treasure
Island, Rob Roy, Tom Sawyer, The Scarlet Letter, Frankinstein all have been used
from my library within the last six months by my children and their friends.
As for being unreliable they are public domain editions of books. All the major
publishers from Dover to Signet to Barnes and Noble use them. But they are not
critical scholarly editions. At least that is what I have been told. As for
being unattributed you have the authors name and sometimes a translator's name
and even a publisher. But not always. But if you look in a library or a good
bookstore you will find the text that the etext was generated from. Because
they come from what is available. For example, when I started looking into Mary
Shelly's Frankenstein etext I found that it is a copy of the Everyman's Library
edition of 1910 that is a copy of the 1832 second edition. I did a check last
Friday of the bookstores in my area and there were 100 copies of Frankenstein
and all but two were from this edition.
What I am about to say next is a personal opinion and not intended to be a
putdown or a slam but I think that the marked up texts are not all that
wonderful. It imcreases the size for the document between 10 and 15 percent, it
is slow to load and read over the web with a browser, And it is a pain and very
time consuming load one chapter after another if you are reading texts as I do.
In fact on of the first things that I do when I download a marked up etext is
use my html converter to change it back to regular etext and compile them into
one text.
I can't speak for M. Hart but M. Hart has posted a book in last year's (1995)
collection where he goes into quite a bit of detail about who uses and for what
purposes the etexts of Project Gutenberg are used. I suggest that you read it.
His arguments are much better than my own.