Can You Spare Four Hours?

Do you have a few hours to spare for a good literary project?  If you can spare as few as (an estimated) four hours, you can help out by completing the "online text editing" of one of Charles Dickens's old magazines from the 1850s and 1860s.

The call for volunteers comes from Dickens Journals Online and all the details, along with how to join the project, can be found at there.  This bit is taken directly from the website and explains the need for volunteers and what all is involved.  Take a look and, if you are so inclined after reading this summary, head over to the website to join the project.  Honestly, this sounds more like fun than work, and I'm willing to bet that book bloggers all over the world are ready to jump in and help.

The OTC project began in earnest in January 2011, and for the first time we have given limited public access to DJO. We need to correct about 30,000 journal pages, not including the Household Narrative. This is a bit too much for our small team of three, and we desperately need volunteers! We'd love to complete this project before the official launch of the DJO site in 2012 — and can do so with your help.


A quick technical review will help the reader understand the need for text correction: we store two files (or records) for every journal page, one file being a facsimile of the original page stored as an image file (in ".jpg" format), and the other being a text file, similar to this web page. The text file was produced by applying optical character recognition (OCR) software to the image file, where the accuracy of each process depends on the quality of the image file.


All though the image files were created using a state-of-the-art scanning device, the quality of the original journal pages varied and some contained paper folds, smudge marks, transparency, etc. and as a result the text files contain a number of errors that vary from file to file. This is the main dilemma that we are trying to correct. A secondary problem, relatively trivial, is that the text file contains unwanted information and styling, which can also be corrected at the same time as the actual mistakes.


We have decided to make a magazine, typically 24 pages long, the smallest unit of contribution and as a result we will have 1,101 units of work at the end of the day. So if we find around 1,000 volunteers to take on 1 or 2 magazines each, we will reach the target between us. We reckon that with a typical magazine, it will take about 10 minutes to review and correct each page = 240 minutes or 4 hours' work). Please pass the details to friends you think might be interested.

If any of you do sign-up, please let me know how it goes for you. I'm going to register this morning myself.

I Was Just Thinking...

about how easy I reach the burn-out stage while reading an e-book.  After two are three reading sessions of just a few minutes each, I have to grab a tree-book and dive into its pages for some heavy reading.  E-books just don't deliver their contents with the same effectiveness of paper for me.  Real books are like comfort food; e-books are like fast food.  They are a convenience, but are definitely not up to the pleasures offered by a home-cooked meal.

...about the e-book I"m about halfway through right now, Crowe on Banjo.  I just finished Chapter 6 and was enjoying the old black and white photos that come at the end of that chapter.  Well, at least I enjoyed two pages of photos.  Those two pages were followed by 32 blank pages, meaning that all of Chapter 7 and a portion of Chapter 8 are missing.  I contacted University of Illinois Press about the problem and, within five minutes, I received a reply addressing the problem.  Amazing response.  (The problem appears to be at the service from which I downloaded the book, not with their upload to that service.)

...about how sick I am of those Kindle television commercials that ridicule those of us who still prefer tree-books to what Amazon is obviously intending to be their main line of business within a few years, e-books.  Even the Chicago Tribune folks are noticing.  Here's some of the dialogue quoted there from one of Amazon's snide little ads:

In it, a woman in red struts past her friend who asks where she's going. "I want to get a book that came out today," she says. When he tells her that he does too, she suggests he join her at the bookstore.


"I'm good," he says, then pushes a button on his Kindle. "Got it."

No he didn't "get it." What he got was an electronic file that he can't share with anyone, sell, trade for another book with a friend, etc. He did not get a book. He got a limited-use copy of the words in the book.

...about finding some time this weekend to drive into the city to visit some of the wonderful indie bookstores down there that I've neglected for way too long.  You know, though, what they say about good intentions vs. sleeping in on a Saturday morning.

Slaughterhouse-Five: Still Banned in Missouri, but...

Remember this July 29 post about the Missouri school district that decided to ban Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five from its high school library?

Well, another library, The Vonnegut Memorial Library, is not amused.  According to News-Leader.com, the library is helping to make 150 copies of the novel available to Republic, MO, high school students.  All they have to do is ask for a free copy.

In a note labeled “stop the madness” on the library’s website, Whitehead wrote an anonymous donor provided 150 new copies of the controversial book for students in the Greene County school district.


“We think it’s important for everyone to have their First Amendment rights,” Whitehead wrote. “We’re not telling you to like the book… we just want you to read it and decide for yourself.”

Those unfamiliar with what happened in Republic, MO, should click on the article for how and why something like this happened there.  Too, the article includes a quote from the author of the other book that was pulled out of the high school library at the same time that the Vonnegut title was removed.  And,, school board superintendent Vern Minor points out what some will see as a reasonable compromise to the whole issue of banning books from the school library.  Take a look.

Manhood for Amateurs

As I began Michael Chabon’s Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Father, Husband, and Son, I was under the impression that the book was simply a collection of essays on what it means to be a family man in the midst of all of today’s craziness.  But it is so much more than that.  Chabon does give his thoughts on parenting and on being a man burdened with a certain amount of insecurity about his role, but because of all the personal history the author uses to illustrate his points, the book can just as easily be classified as an autobiography or memoir.

Divided into ten sections of 1-6 pieces each, Manhood for Amateurs visits various phases of Chabon’s life, beginning with his boyhood and progressing to his relationship with his wife and children in the present (2009).  Along the way, Chabon reveals a truth known to most men, if they will only admit it to themselves: they are largely faking it.  In fact, the first piece under the section entitled “Styles of Manhood” is called exactly that, “Faking It.”  Here, Chabon addresses the male tendency to “put up a front,” to “pretend” to possess a competence in any given area that may, or may not, exist.  The piece begins with his effort to hang a new towel rack in one of his bathrooms, a task during which Chabon says he “managed to sustain the appearance of competence over nearly the entire course of…three hours.”  He, however, well knew from experience that “dealing with molly bolts” often leads to “tragedy.”  That it did not happen that way this time, surprised him as much as it did his wife. 

Michael Chabon

Another recurring theme of Manhood for Amateurs  is the degree of freedom Chabon enjoyed during his childhood compared to how little freedom today’s children experience.  Chabon considers the members of his generation to be among the very last children allowed to explore the “Wilderness of Childhood”  on their own.  This land, once “ruled by children,” a place where they could spend hours at a time free from adult supervision, has disappeared from a world in which every childhood activity seems to be strictly supervised and regulated by parents.  Chabon explores how this change affects today’s children, and society, for the rest of their lives.

Manhood for Amateurs is filled with frank and insightful writing.  It is a pleasure to read Chabon’s prose and to learn so much about the man responsible for books such as The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Wonder Boys, and The Mysteries of Pittsburgh.  Chabon has a way of gently exposing the little boy in all of us that is sure to make men everywhere smile in recognition.

Rated at: 4.0

The British Library Teams Up With iPad

I just spent a few minutes downloading and installing a great new iPad application from the British Library (what appears to be an updated version was made available today).  There are two versions of the app, a free one that allows the user access to about 100 books, and a version that costs $2.99 a month but allows access to something like 40,000 books.  According to BBC News, there are still another 25,000 to come.

"E-books tend to be rather two-dimensional. Rather flat and dull to look at," said Simon Bell, head of partnerships at the British Library.


"One of beauties of this is that it tries to represent in facsimile the beauty of the book."

[...]

The British Library said that it hoped to add other mobile devices in future and that it was talking to a range of partners, including Amazon.

The article also mentions that Microsoft participation in, and funding of, the project has ended but that Google will be digitizing another 250,000 books that could potentially be made available to subscribers.

It appears that the collection is comprised entirely of 18th and 19th manuscripts. I have sampled Robinson Crusoe and a book from the History of Travel section of the library called Through a Continent on Wheels.The color of the book covers and illustrations are very realistic and natural, giving these digital versions the feel of the originals.  Add to this the iPad's capability of "flipping" pages, and this is an e-book experience as close to the real thing as I've found anywhere.  To me, this is the real beauty of  the e-book concept - suddenly the average reader has access to books well over a century old that he would never otherwise have experienced, or even known existed.

The collection is organized into these categories:

Geography & Typography
Geology
History of Britain & Ireland
History of Travel
Novels of the 18th & 19th Century
Fiction & Prose Literature
Poetry &mDrama
General Historical Collections
History of Asia
History of Europe
Asian Collections: Geography of Asia
History of Social Sciences
History of the Americas
History of the Ancient World
History of the Middle East
History of Philosophy & Ethics
Military History & Warfare
History of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific
History of Central & South America

I am excited about this application - 100 books is a nice, sample and the free version I've downloaded allows searching the entire collection.  I'm leaning toward a subscription to the service but, since the British Library has given me a whole lot to digest for free, it will probably be a while.  This is a winner that iPad owners will want to jump on as soon as possible.

Lost on Treasure Island

If nothing else, Steve Friedman is honest.  How else to explain a memoir like Lost on Treasure Island, a book in which Friedman decides to expose himself and what was a rather demeaning lifestyle to the scrutiny of the reading public?  Not only is Friedman willing to make himself look bad, he takes it all a step farther by focusing on the very parts of his New York City lifestyle that make him look the worst. 

Friedman, from St. Louis, seems to have arrived in New York City with all of his basic insecurities in tow – and has not been quick to lose them during the years he has made his living there, first as a GQ editor and later as a freelance writer.  Not the least of his insecurities (once he finally realized that he is not, after all, the least sophisticated man in NYC) pertains to his obsession with identifying his Mrs. Friedman, the woman with whom he and his children will live happily ever after.  This is not an easy task for any man or woman, but Friedman’s burning desire to make it happen now distorted his judgment so greatly that he mistakenly found her more than once – much to the women’s surprise and dismay. 

During Steve Friedman’s search for Mrs. Right, women, with the exception of the ones he sometimes mistakenly identified as surefire wife-material, became fungible.  He was always willing to have one of them around, but he never suspended his hunt for Mrs. Friedman.  She had to be out there somewhere.  In a twist, perhaps, of poetic justice, as soon as he grew serious about a woman, his obsession tended to scare her away.

Steve Friedman

Lost on Treasure Island is the story of one Midwesterner’s love life but, as its subtitle implies, it is more a story of “longing” and “lousy choices” than one of true love.  The beauty of Lost on Treasure Island is its author’s ability to laugh at himself while sharing the mishaps of his love life (and to a lesser extent, his work life) with the rest of us.  This is a man who admits to trolling for lovers several times a week at various support group meetings held around the city, one able to poke fun at the type of writing he edited during his stint at GQ. 

Still in New York City, Friedman is now a more experienced, if not necessarily wiser, man than the one who arrived there from St. Louis hoping to make his mark in publishing.  Amidst all the mistakes he catalogues in Lost on Treasure Island, he has obviously done some things right.  This is his fifth nonfiction book, and he continues to freelance for publications such as GQ, Esquire, The New York Times, and Runner’s World.  In the description of his search for Mrs. Friedman and his dream job, Friedman offers hope to the rest of us: perseverance has a way of overcoming the mistakes that would ruin a lesser man.

Rated at: 3.5

(Review Copy provided by Publisher)