This is a project that's been going on for a good while: Project Gutenberg began in 1971 as an attempt to digitize public domain works - classic literature - for computer-based reading.
Originally the works were mostly done up as plain text (.txt format) as that was the easiest and most accessible. However, with the advent of ebooks / ereader devices that can mimic classic font styles - and with HTML format for ereader apps allowing for graphics/illustrations - more works have been put in more legible, more comfortable reader formats such as PDF, ePub and MOBI.
And as works of public domain - expired copyright, only in the United States however, some nations may not be able to access - these downloads can be had for free. Sure, we're not talking the latest Danielle Steel or Stephen King work here, but we ARE talking about must-reads like Great Expectations, Les Miz, Huck Finn, Machiavelli's The Prince, the Kama... oooh, wait, kids could be reading this...
Anywho. For all ereaders out there, Gutenberg is a great place to expand your e-collection.
Please also donate to Project Gutenberg, it is a non-profit.
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Just To State My Biggest Current Woe
...is finding where I can find a relatively cheap yet durable bicycle. I need to get out more, and I prefer biking more than walking. But I need to find a bike that can handle a 300-plus pound body (I'm not fat, I'm big boned! No, seriously, being broad-shouldered and over 6'2" is part of the problem).
I think it's the tires I gotta worry about. The last time I had a bike they kept going flat on me, and the bike in question was a 10-speed with thin wheels...
I think it's the tires I gotta worry about. The last time I had a bike they kept going flat on me, and the bike in question was a 10-speed with thin wheels...
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Friday, January 4, 2013
What Is Digital Literacy?
Digital literacy is one of the trends in librarianship. What exactly is it?
It is the ability to read, understand, rework, redirect, and sometimes create brand new digital information in a shared digital environment.
It means more than just receiving and sending emails. It means more than just getting an ereader and downloading ebooks. It means taking every raw bit of data floating in the Internet 'verse (once considered a series of tubes but in the current context the Internet is now a cloud), text and images and sounds and movement (yes even that) and working with all that data to create new information with its own context for sharing and further use.
A digital environment that exists as an interactive environment.
It requires an understanding of social media, of expectation of action response and reaction.
As libraries are a point of learning and education, digital literacy's importance to libraries and librarians can't be overstated. Librarians have to be adept with digital information, online resources, sharing of resources, creative input and output. As libraries are becoming less a source of print media (and even AV media as more and more audio and visual materials are online), libraries are becoming more a workplace, an open table shop where people can gather to work on projects. I'm seeing local colleges clear out reference shelves - reference books now made obsolete by digital resources - and creating more study areas. Libraries are now opening coffee shops inside the buildings as draws, when once before we frowned on food and drink because spills would affect our book collections.
Being literate with digital information - being creative with information - is now a major requirement for public support librarians.
Just remember: Tweeting shorthand is only good for Twitter. Please write in proper Anglish for all other communiques. Smileys still optional. :-)
It is the ability to read, understand, rework, redirect, and sometimes create brand new digital information in a shared digital environment.
It means more than just receiving and sending emails. It means more than just getting an ereader and downloading ebooks. It means taking every raw bit of data floating in the Internet 'verse (once considered a series of tubes but in the current context the Internet is now a cloud), text and images and sounds and movement (yes even that) and working with all that data to create new information with its own context for sharing and further use.
A digital environment that exists as an interactive environment.
It requires an understanding of social media, of expectation of action response and reaction.
As libraries are a point of learning and education, digital literacy's importance to libraries and librarians can't be overstated. Librarians have to be adept with digital information, online resources, sharing of resources, creative input and output. As libraries are becoming less a source of print media (and even AV media as more and more audio and visual materials are online), libraries are becoming more a workplace, an open table shop where people can gather to work on projects. I'm seeing local colleges clear out reference shelves - reference books now made obsolete by digital resources - and creating more study areas. Libraries are now opening coffee shops inside the buildings as draws, when once before we frowned on food and drink because spills would affect our book collections.
Being literate with digital information - being creative with information - is now a major requirement for public support librarians.
Just remember: Tweeting shorthand is only good for Twitter. Please write in proper Anglish for all other communiques. Smileys still optional. :-)
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Going Into 2013 With an Egg Timer and Twenty Ideas
And none of the ideas involve using the Egg Timer.
(ow, stop hitting me)
Okay, the Egg Timer is a symbol of my needing to GET SOME MORE WRITING DONE and EDITED FOR PUBLISHING.
Be right back.
(ow, stop hitting me)
Okay, the Egg Timer is a symbol of my needing to GET SOME MORE WRITING DONE and EDITED FOR PUBLISHING.
Be right back.
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
To Writers Looking at Self-Publishing
Seriously: get an editor. From Penny C. Sansevieri:
I'd also add "hiring an editor who has a shovel and an egg timer and is unafraid to use either."
/dithers over NaNo work
People ask me all the time, "How can I be successful?" Well, aside from the usual stuff, like show up and keep promoting, the one key to success is to publish a book so good, your reader can't put it down. But to take it a step beyond that, I would say publish something that has been edited often, and by someone who knows how to edit a book and isn't afraid to tell you the things you may not want to hear.
I'd also add "hiring an editor who has a shovel and an egg timer and is unafraid to use either."
/dithers over NaNo work
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Witty's Year End Book Review 2012
To the seven people still reading this blog who aren't Chinese spammers (by the by, they kinda dropped off when I imposed the register-to-comment rule): It's BEST BOOKS TIME.
To re-state the rules: These are not books published this year that I think are AWESOME AND COOL. Some of these books may have been published ages ago. It's just these are the books I've read this year that I feel are deserving of the AWESOME AND COOL labels of labeling.
One thing to note: I've been reading more and more in ebook format on my Nook Color. Yes, even graphic novels are now available in ereader format, so...
Raylan, Elmore Leonard
Leonard is the master of simple prose crime thrillers. He started off writing westerns but soon turned to modern noir (there is, oddly, very little difference between the outlaws of the Wild West and the outlaws of the urban streets) and hit it big writing about desperate violent criminals and cops in places like Detroit and Miami. Raylan is a novel dedicated to one of his minor cop characters turned into prime-time television superstar: a US Marshal reassigned to his home county in Kentucky after a questionable shoot-out in Miami. The beauty of Leonard's work is the vivid characterization for even the smallest role: his criminals (even the college-educated ones) tend towards stupid and reckless, but you can see how and why they think the way they do. And even the most stupid of them are capable of a moment of pure clarity and profound thought... right before they do something even dumber that gets them caught or dead. Raylan himself is not a white-hatted good guy - even though he wears an iconic beige cowboy hat - but he is at least the most sane character running around shooting up half the countryside.
I got into reading Leonard while working in Broward County libraries - during the period a lot of his books were getting turned into shows and movies - especially falling in love with his book Out of Sight (alongside watching the film of said book, it is one of my favorite non-scifi movies ever). I watch Justified - the television show this novel is a spinoff of, expanding the fictional universe of Harlan County - enjoying the characterization and depth of narrative. The novel is akin to reading short stories or episodes not produced for the screen, in Leonard's perfect style.
Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, Eric Foner
Once you finish reading McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom, you need to read Foner's Reconstruction covering the aftermath of the Civil War and the sorrows and miscues that befell the nation. Documenting the failures of the North to ensure the rights of freed ex-slaves right after the war ends - due to Andrew Johnson's reveal to be more interested in retaining the southern power structure (Johnson hated slave-owners more for their aristocratic airs than for their ownership of humans) - up to President US Grant's struggles to stop the Klan and cope with corrupt state-level Republican governance, Foner notes where the failures took place and why: above all a level of expediency and short-sightedness on the part of Northern politicians who quickly found the rebuilding efforts of the South too time-consuming and divisive among voters back north. If you want to understand why we had 100 plus years after the Civil War of southern historical revisionism, Jim Crow humiliations making blacks into second-class citizens even with the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments in place, and why we've still got serious problems with racism in the United States to this very day... you gotta read this history.
I've read several but haven't really felt the need to compliment any of them by declaring them "best." My big problem right now is that the universe I follow - DC - is undergoing yet another universal revamp called "The New 52" aka Nu52. A lot of it has to do with what I call "Universe-Shattering Crossover Fatigue" where every year the comic book universe is rocked with earth-breaking catastrophes in which heroes die, heroes get reborn, and any recent continuity changes get rewritten just to satisfy a minor faction of head editors who want things done their way without realizing how bad their changes are gonna be. Batman for example getting a never-before-seen secret conspiracy known as The Court of Owls even with 80/40/20 years of established history never once hinting at such a thing. It gets tiring, all these EPIC re-inventions. For once I want stories of honest-to-goodness one-issue-length, no more 12-issue storyarcs, no more vast ground-shaking revelations, no more what-the-hell plot twists. Give me comfort food for a year, people, just stop with the "what a twist" stupidity.
Sheryl Nantus has been busy this year, I'll tell you what. She's got Heroes Without, Monsters Within finally up for sale as her follow-up to the Blaze of Glory novel I recommended awhile back. I haven't gotten it meself yet, but I should be getting a few BN.com gift cards for the Nook this Saturnalia...
To re-state the rules: These are not books published this year that I think are AWESOME AND COOL. Some of these books may have been published ages ago. It's just these are the books I've read this year that I feel are deserving of the AWESOME AND COOL labels of labeling.
One thing to note: I've been reading more and more in ebook format on my Nook Color. Yes, even graphic novels are now available in ereader format, so...
Best Fiction Book
Raylan, Elmore Leonard
Leonard is the master of simple prose crime thrillers. He started off writing westerns but soon turned to modern noir (there is, oddly, very little difference between the outlaws of the Wild West and the outlaws of the urban streets) and hit it big writing about desperate violent criminals and cops in places like Detroit and Miami. Raylan is a novel dedicated to one of his minor cop characters turned into prime-time television superstar: a US Marshal reassigned to his home county in Kentucky after a questionable shoot-out in Miami. The beauty of Leonard's work is the vivid characterization for even the smallest role: his criminals (even the college-educated ones) tend towards stupid and reckless, but you can see how and why they think the way they do. And even the most stupid of them are capable of a moment of pure clarity and profound thought... right before they do something even dumber that gets them caught or dead. Raylan himself is not a white-hatted good guy - even though he wears an iconic beige cowboy hat - but he is at least the most sane character running around shooting up half the countryside.
I got into reading Leonard while working in Broward County libraries - during the period a lot of his books were getting turned into shows and movies - especially falling in love with his book Out of Sight (alongside watching the film of said book, it is one of my favorite non-scifi movies ever). I watch Justified - the television show this novel is a spinoff of, expanding the fictional universe of Harlan County - enjoying the characterization and depth of narrative. The novel is akin to reading short stories or episodes not produced for the screen, in Leonard's perfect style.
Best Non-Fiction Book
Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, Eric Foner
Once you finish reading McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom, you need to read Foner's Reconstruction covering the aftermath of the Civil War and the sorrows and miscues that befell the nation. Documenting the failures of the North to ensure the rights of freed ex-slaves right after the war ends - due to Andrew Johnson's reveal to be more interested in retaining the southern power structure (Johnson hated slave-owners more for their aristocratic airs than for their ownership of humans) - up to President US Grant's struggles to stop the Klan and cope with corrupt state-level Republican governance, Foner notes where the failures took place and why: above all a level of expediency and short-sightedness on the part of Northern politicians who quickly found the rebuilding efforts of the South too time-consuming and divisive among voters back north. If you want to understand why we had 100 plus years after the Civil War of southern historical revisionism, Jim Crow humiliations making blacks into second-class citizens even with the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments in place, and why we've still got serious problems with racism in the United States to this very day... you gotta read this history.
Best Graphic Novel
I've read several but haven't really felt the need to compliment any of them by declaring them "best." My big problem right now is that the universe I follow - DC - is undergoing yet another universal revamp called "The New 52" aka Nu52. A lot of it has to do with what I call "Universe-Shattering Crossover Fatigue" where every year the comic book universe is rocked with earth-breaking catastrophes in which heroes die, heroes get reborn, and any recent continuity changes get rewritten just to satisfy a minor faction of head editors who want things done their way without realizing how bad their changes are gonna be. Batman for example getting a never-before-seen secret conspiracy known as The Court of Owls even with 80/40/20 years of established history never once hinting at such a thing. It gets tiring, all these EPIC re-inventions. For once I want stories of honest-to-goodness one-issue-length, no more 12-issue storyarcs, no more vast ground-shaking revelations, no more what-the-hell plot twists. Give me comfort food for a year, people, just stop with the "what a twist" stupidity.
Best Book By Someone I Know And Correspond With On a Regular Basis
Sheryl Nantus has been busy this year, I'll tell you what. She's got Heroes Without, Monsters Within finally up for sale as her follow-up to the Blaze of Glory novel I recommended awhile back. I haven't gotten it meself yet, but I should be getting a few BN.com gift cards for the Nook this Saturnalia...
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