User:Vtaylor/CIS2 Summer 2008/Project Gutenberg
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CIS 2 Computers and the Internet in Society SUMMER 2008 Final Projects
Contents
Introduction
Here you will learn about ebooks and one project in particular that is making ebooks more of a reality. Project Gutenberg is a group that are taking their time in putting books online for free public viewing.
The Essence of Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg is a volunteer-powered organization[1] founded by Michael Hart with a single purpose; "to encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks."[2] Today, the effort has amounted to the digital conversion of over 25,000 titles.[3] Hart came up with the idea in 1971[4], and its operation has been driven by the Project Gutenberg Philosophy since. The Project Gutenberg philosophy is underpinned by two ideas: 1. The Project Gutenberg Etexts should cost so little that no one will really care how much they cost. They should be a general size that fits on the standard media of the time. 2. The Project Gutenberg Etexts should so easily used that no one should ever have to care about how to use, read, quote and search them. [5]
Volunteers for Project Gutenberg have several options for making their contributions. The vast majority of volunteer work is done through Digital Proofreaders, a network of volunteers working together to proofread scanned images of text. To date, Digital Proofreaders has successfully completed the conversion of over 13,000 books, electronically preserving them for future generations.[6] There is no formal training required, however, there is a set of guidelines that DP highly recommends before attempting a real proof. They offer a walkthrough proof, to give potential volunteers a feel for what it would be like donating their much valued time.
The DVD/CD Project gives volunteers an opportunity to help distribute eBooks using a medium other than the web. This particular project offers a set of different downloadable content packages, but volunteers are encouraged to create their own as well.[7]
The Project Gutenberg Wiki gives users a place to help organize the vast collection of eBooks into "bookshelves". These sections are broken down into different subjects; Anthropology, Africa, Crime, Biographies, and Language Education to name just a few.[8] The Wiki is not limited to this function, and has led to the creation of the Project Gutenberg Website in languages other than English.[9]
A list of wanted titles is available to encourage those who might be in possession of them to donate them.[10] Volunteers can passively donate their time by promoting Project Gutenberg. Both still and animated banners are available to add to any website. [11] Finally, Volunteers' Voices is a volunteer space allowing users to share their experiences volunteering for he project with others.[12]
The leadership at Project Gutenberg is limited by a distribution of powers among its CEO, board of directors, and the intellectual property holder.[13] The consensus among Project Gutenberg administrators is rooted in a strong belief against the gain of any political or financial power through work on the project.[14] The project does accept monetary donations, but would rather rely on the time donated by its volunteers than money.[15]
Contact Information:
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
809 North 1500 West
Salt Lake City, UT 84116
http://www.gutenberg.org
Leadership Team:
Founder Michael Hart: hart_AT_pobox.com
CEO Dr. Gregory Newby: gbnewby_AT_pglaf.org
Board Members: Charles Franks, Juliet Sutherland, Greg Newby
Distributed Proofreaders Foundation
319 Park St
Montclair, NJ 07043
dpfoudnation@pgdp.net
http://www.pgdp.net/c/
Convenience & Worldwide Increase in Technology Relating to Ebooks
Ebooks have completely revolutionized the way people in today's world read, and are now used in homes, businesses, and schools worldwide. Ebooks have been successful because they are much more convenient to use, and access than traditional books, and fit right in with our worldwide increase in technology.
The first reason why ebooks have been so successful, is because they are extremely convenient to use. According to Ebooks Corporation, ebooks have done so well, and will continue to thrive, because they are simple and easy to use. Just like a regular book you can use the programs featuring the ebook to highlight sections you like, bookmark pages, and add comments. You can even use the search feature, and type in key phrases or words, to find a particular part of the book without having to search for it page by page. Also, if you are interested in reading a book, rather than having to go out to the store and purchasing it, or possibly even having it be sold out, you can quickly go online and purchase the book, and have it available and ready to read in minutes! You can also save on electricity because the ebook devices come with a backlight that you could even read in complete darkness.
The second reason why ebooks have been extremely successful, is because they fall in line with the increase in technology that is currently happening worldwide. Not only can the devices that read ebooks programs read convert books into this easy-to-use format, but they can also convert newspapers and magazines as well. You can also save all of your books to one device, or delete them if you no longer need them, and access them at the click of a button without actually having to carry dozens of books around with you! Some devices, such as the Kindle, can hold up to 200 books on one memory card, and memory cards can be switched out easily, meaning that you can carry an infinite amount of books with you, that would all fit in your pocket! Everything in technology is becoming more compact, and yet holding more information, and the ebook technology is in this category.
In conclusion, I believe that ebooks have become, and will continue to be, extremely successful in the technological field because they are very convenient to use and access, and keep up with the ever growing range of technology that is available worldwide.
Sources:
http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,700243978,00.html
http://www.ebookscorp.com/future.html
http://www.idoebooks.com/2008/07/10/the-ebook-convenience-in-any-genre.html
Estill, Jim "5 Reasons that Ebooks are Effective Communication Tools." 5 Reasons that Ebooks are Effective Communication Tools. 11 Aug. 2006. EzineArticles.com. 5 Aug 2008 <http://ezinearticles.com/?5-Reasons-that-Ebooks-are-Effective-Communication-Tools&id=266241>.
Current Trends and Future Directions of ebooks
As currently, a greater number of electronic resources becomes available. ebooks are one way to enhance the digital library globally anytime throughout the days, and people can save much time for retrieving and accessing specific research. It has brought people into a new type of library world. It does not only provide the electronic resources, but it also integrates them into library systems to streamline library operations.
When discussing the societal and cultural changes create by available new technologies, Paul Hoffert has stated that “The context has changed. The new context is affecting how people communicate and how they seek and use information, as well as how and why they use libraries. In addition, library users have varied expectations for accessing and acquiring information. The context of the information and the technology environments in which we function has changed.” ebook has huge impact on our society. More and more people are getting familiar with it, and we will just continue on this path.
ebooks have many advantages. People can access it from anywhere; there is prevention from being lost, stolen, or damaged; it has capability to search within a book and across a collection of books; it has customizable search interfaces; and etc. ebooks provide people mainly with time efficiency and convenience. We now are very reliable on such technology, and the trend will be continuous.
ebooks have become more popular with publishers, librarians, and vendors within the past years due to its convenience and time efficiency. There are three categories for ebook readers such as PDAs, ebook hardware and software. In addition, there are many online providers. PDA users are allowed to easily download ebook content from the internet. The major ebook hardware providers such as Softbook and rocketbook, have become increasingly popular in public libraries. The major ebook software companies are Palm Digital Media, Adobe, and Microsoft. And the most popular ebook online providers are Gale, Bowker, UMI, and O’Reilly. All these companies have great contributes to the society and people.
The librarians should utilize the capabilities of the ebook. Their expectations are changing significantly as they become more dependent upon technology. ebook means more than just an alternative to the paper books. The libraries will be moved into the digital world by all the advances. People are becoming more comfortable using technology and the internet to meet their information needs. A survey shows that a 78% of students that are prefer to use the internet to do their research for school work, and this number will just be continuously increasing. ebook is a great new type of technology that has changed and benefited the whole society.
Sources:
Pope, Barbara Kline. National Academy Press: A Case Study. Journal of Electronic Publishing, 1999, http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/04-04/pope.html
Keller, Larry. Looking it up, 28 November, 2000, http://www.cnn.com/2000/CAREER/trends/11/28/librarians/index.html
Decline of Literacy & Budget Constraints
"...literary reading in America is not only declining rapidly among all groups, but the rate of decline has accelerated, especially among the young."- NEA
According to a 2002 survey taken by the NEA literary reading has declined by 10% since 1982. They surveyed 17,000 Americans and determined that the largest decline was 28% among 18-24 year olds. It seems that, that demographic isn’t reading at all, but in reality they are spending most of their time reading blogs, and fanfiction stories. That just tells us to evolve, adapt to the new form of literacy.
Literacy needs to be redefined to account for the new forms of reading instead of your typical papers. Most news reading is read online instead of the newspaper. Also more fanfictions are being read instead of your typical novel. Fanfictions are the equivalent of short stories. Since People aren’t reading novels does that really mean that literacy is in a decline, or that we have moved on to a different form of literature?
Budget Constraints
The even start program is a program that offers grants to help local family literary projects. It is mainly to help low-income families. There budget grew to over 250 million dollars annually, but the Bush Administration has called this program ineffective and has cut its budget to $63 million for the 2008 fiscal year. Another program with minimal funding is the No Child Left Behind Law, which is used to improve standardized test scores. Low income schools have to stick to strict materials instead of giving the students valuable online skills, so they are falling behind in online literacies, which in turn is creating a larger decline in the literacy of the new age.
Budgets need to be adjusted to get everything we can out of the internet, and its functions. Project Gutenberg is one example of a free online Literacy program. They are trying to reach out to all communities by putting books online for free reading.
"With the Internet becoming the dominant site for reading and writing, especially among young people, some scholars predict that eventually only a small "reading class" will ever read novels, book-length nonfiction texts or serious magazines." We need to have funds available to get low-income families computers and cheap internet so their family can have a fair chance at education. Also so more readings will be available for free online.
Sites used:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/a_new_kind_of_l.php
http://ezproxy.fhda.edu:2054/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqresrre2008022200&type=hitlist&num=5
http://www.nea.gov/pub/ReadingAtRisk.pdf
NEA = National Endowment for the Arts
Making money with eBooks
E BOOKS are going to be the future of hand writing people are going to use e books more and more on e books they will write and save the information as a normal note book.In future people will be reading books from e books on line libraries on e books so its going to be a popular product,in this way you can make your own e books and sell them to make money.
creating e books
Creating e book of your own is very easy you can write it yourself it will take time but if you write your own e book it will give you money.you can write it in simple writings or in HTML formats or in PDF formats.writing yourself is the most easy way of creating e books other way is to buy label rights but you have to very careful what you can do with label right or not.you have to see the best ones which allow you to edit,change graphics put your name on it etc.one more way of creating your own e book is to read lots of articles and note important points and by combining those points and writing into a single article is also a way of creating a e book.but in my view point writing your own e book on a new topic is the best way to write e book. first of all get free content by getting public domain.when your topic is in pubic domain it means the copyright has expired.you can also get a private label content you can re write and also get your name as author.then you can build your own pages in ms word, excel and other office applications and create a pdf foramt.if you have pdf formats then you have a benefit that users of both windows and mac can read your e books.you can also build HTML formats just get a simple web page and put your information so its easy to use.their are many other ways of creating your e books also but writing your self is easiest one.
selling e book
After creating your e book you can sell it for may be five to ten years.if your e book is for 50 dollars and you sell 400 books in five years so after five years you have a very good profit and you can make good money and if you have 5 to 10 e books selling at same time so you can imagine how much you wealth is coming.that's why by creating you own e book and selling it can be one way of making good money.
sources
http://www.ezau.com/latest/articles
Conclusion
Now that you have read about ebooks and our new future with literature more needs to be done to continue making books readily available online. So that amazing groups like Project Gutenberg can stay around and help bring reading into the future.
Timeline
07/31: Pick your individual Section Topic
08/01: Complete all major research on topic
08/03: Complete your section for review
08/04: Introduction
08/04: Conclussion
08/05: Final Edit
08/06: Project submitted for grading.
Roles
- Haris: Researcher
- Manuel: Team Coordinator, Tech Wiz, Editor
- Qi: Researcher
- Tatyana: Style Coordinator, Content Manager
- Tiffany: Project Leader, Editer, Wiki Tech
Relocated pages
- The Essence of Project Gutenberg
- Convenience & Worldwide Increase in Technology Relating to Ebooks
- Current Trends and Future Directions of ebooks
- Decline of Literacy & Budget Constraints
