Paving the Way for Standard Ebooks in Canada

[Alexandro Jurgensen]

Hi Alex and All,

I know and fully respect the fact that Standard Ebooks is a project focusing on producing ebooks that are public domain in the United States. However, as a Canadian, I have a vested interest in seeing more public domain books distributed that are in the Canadian public domain. History would dictate that the best course of action would be to set up a totally separate project called Standard Ebooks Canada or some such and work on building a separate library of books, having any interested party repeat work that has already been done. This to e seems like a lot of wasted effort. I propose that instead, we look at ways that high-quality books can be shared between the two projects that will undoubtedly stem from this effort. Two areas I see for collaboration are the sharing of high-quality ebooks and, of course, the underlying standard(s). Two differences I can already see developing are the inclusion of more Canadiana in the Canadian collection and the inclusion of books, such as C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, that are in the Canadian public domain but not yet in the US public domain. Finally, another place I see for collaboration is the shared use of a mailing list and set of contributors.

Thoughts?

Warm regards,
Alex

Alex Jurgensen
President
Camp Bowen Society for the Visually Impaired
A Chapter of the Canadian Council of the Blind

Fostering Friendship Through Independence

www.campbowen.ca

+1 (604) 947-0021
+1 (844) MYBOWEN (692-6936)

[Choco winkles]

Hello Alexandro:

I think this is a great idea, since the copyright restrictions in the US are stricter than basically anywhere else. If we create a Canadian Standard Ebooks repository, we can basically use the same tools and resources.

If we did this, I think it would be a great idea to change the typography guidelines for our fork to allow for Canadian standard spelling as well.

Kind regards,

Choco

[Alex Cabal]

For now, because copyright laws are so different across countries, I would prefer not to have other projects in other countries using the Standard Ebooks name, or our mailing list to coordinate.  I know Gutenberg does this, and as a consequence their US site still gets nastygrams to this day from lawyers who don't understand that Gutenberg Australia is not actually affiliated with Gutenberg. That's a headache I don't need at the moment, certainly not for what is basically a hobby.

Additionally, typography and formatting differ across languages and cultures as well, and while I would consider myself an expert at US-English typography and formatting and thus am confidant in the output of our project, I can't say the same of other languages, for example French.  This is the same reason why I decline to produce non-English-language works, which many people have repeatedly asked for.

That's not to say that the situation won't change in the future, but only that at this time I don't want to pursue this sort of thing under a single project umbrella.

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[Alexandro Jurgensen]

Hi Alex and All,

I understand your concerns. Using the Standard Ebooks name was merely a way of explaining what I wish to do.

While I agree that typography varies across languages/cultures, I would think that semantics do not. Is that the case?

Regardless, what I am proposing is to create a second project with the Standard Ebooks "format" and "workflow" and have been looking for ways that duplication of effort can be minimized.

As I understand it, Canada uses either British typography or US typography for any given work. I doubt there would be any concerns around adopting US typography for all works in a project such as I described.

I just want to see us share where we can and help make our shared vision of distributing public domain ebooks a reality.

Warm regards,
Alex

Alex Jurgensen
President
Camp Bowen Society for the Visually Impaired
A Chapter of the Canadian Council of the Blind

Fostering Friendship Through Independence

www.campbowen.ca

+1 (604) 947-0021
+1 (844) MYBOWEN (692-6936)

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/9bce9c45-3814-22f9-e5ae-69c805a2ab7e%40standardebooks.org.

[Alexandro Jurgensen]

Hello Choco,

Would you be interested in helping make a SE-like project available in Canada? If so, please reach out to me at my address <al...@campbowen.ca> and we can discuss it off-list.

Warm regards,
Alex

Alex Jurgensen
President
Camp Bowen Society for the Visually Impaired
A Chapter of the Canadian Council of the Blind

Fostering Friendship Through Independence

www.campbowen.ca

+1 (604) 947-0021
+1 (844) MYBOWEN (692-6936)

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