Jules Verne Forum

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A Modest Proposal

From: Norm Wolcott <nwolcott~at~kreative.net>
Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2000 11:48:04 -0500
To: "Jules Verne Forum" <jvf~at~math.technion.ac.il>

The correspondence between A. Evans and S. Kravitz highlights the problem
of obtaining "good "texts in English and moving them around. In order for
this exchange to take place lots of xeroxing mailing costs etc were
incurred, and that is only one exchange.And of course technically one
should send xeroxes as parcel post or 1st Class mail making it even more
costly. The following statistics apply if one were to scan the pages
instead using Tiff4 format:

               1 page scanned at 200 dpi. . . . . . .. . . . . .30kb
                1 page scanned at 300 dpi . . . . . . . . . . . 50kb

Thus we see that 100 pages = 5 megabytes. A 300 page Vernian is therefore
15 megabytes at a resoloution suitable for OCR. For a reading copy 200 dpi
(Fax fine) is adequate and a book would be 10 Meg. Transmitting 10 meg
files is routine on the internet and no pain at all if you are on a
network.While attachments of such size can be emailed, it would be more
convenient if the files wre available in a central location. If those in
possession of the "best" public domain xlation could scan it and post it,
then anyone could download it. There are numerous "free" sites where 15 or
20 meg are dispensed. Anyone can get 15 meg at Geocities.com, and I am sure
there are others. If necessary files could be rotated in for a week or two
according to a schedule which could be posted on JVF.

The problem is illustrated by "A Field of Ice" (I don't even know which
book this title refers to) was going on ebay in the 1874 edition for $450.
I don't even know if this is a good or bad xlation, and at this price I
will certainly not find out. What I am proposing here is that the
community sort of act like the medieval monks who had to deposit a book in
the box before they could borrow one. Here those with the valuable xlations
would "deposit" them and in turn all scholars/amateurs/wannabes would have
them available. For my own part if any such scans become available I would
make every effort to get them OCR'ed into Project Gutenberg, with suitable
credit to JVF.
PG, usually ignored by academia because of its public domain bias, would
like to support the academic community. This looks like it might be a
possibility: a JVF endorsed PG english edition of Verne.!

For example with Hector Servadac (Off on a Comet) we have the Horne
edition, which Art Evans says is horrible. Then there is the Scribners
edition of 1905, one of a series of 6 Verne novels, again using the same
translation. I have not seen the McKay version, but have no doubt it is the
same. And the Dover edition repeats the Horne. So Art must know of a better
translation, but it is certainly not going to be readily available. Hence
the need for the "Modest Proposal". Bad xlations drive out good.

   For those who have not prepared an OCR text, the level of effort
probably goes something like this:
        Initial scans 15%
        1st cut OCR 25%
         1st level corrections 50%
          Final corrections and proofing 10%

So that anyone who contributes the 1st 15% has started the project rolling.
Any takers?

Internet Mail: nwolcott~at~post.harvard.edu -- this is a mail forwarding
address for messages lessthan 2 MB. For longer messages or attachments use
nwolcott~at~kreative.net -- the current ISP.
Received on Wed 09 Feb 2000 - 20:05:34 IST

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