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Two-Week Update
Dec. 15th, 2003 04:43 amI got my scanner just about two weeks ago, and in that time I've scanned and pre-processed six books. I classified three of those as average difficulty and three as EASY. Two of the EASY have already gone through Distributed Proofreading, and I've post-processed both of them. One of them, Tutt and Mr. Tutt by Arthur Train, has already posted to Project Gutenberg, although the HTML version apparently isn't up yet. The third EASY book will release for proofreading tomorrow, on the author's birthday, and the average books will probably take a couple of months to make it through the queue.
The biggest problem I've had is getting the books to lie flat on the scanner. When the image near the middle of the book isn't clear it takes a lot longer to get the book ready for proofreading (since I do some preliminary spellchecking and cleanup before uploading the files). Scanning time itself actually isn't as much of an issue, since I can do other stuff while I'm scanning, but fixing up text is tedious. I've learned to be brutal to my bindings, and I'm considering getting a heavy-duty paper cutter to simply completely separate the pages from the spine.
eBay acquisitions include a second Arthur Train novel, which will be shipping via a slow boat from Alaska, and Baroness Orczy's The Old Man in the Corner, a classic mystery collection which I was surprised to see isn't in Project Gutenberg, even though a sequel is. I also have about a dozen volumes of Cornhill magazine, a literary magazine initially edited by Thackeray, each containing six months somewhere from 1861 to 1884. I figure I should have at least one big project. No consecutive volumes yet, but I'll keep an eye on eBay and try to fill in the gaps. (I unfortunately was outbid on the two volumes that contained a rare Trollope novel. Maybe next time.)
The biggest problem I've had is getting the books to lie flat on the scanner. When the image near the middle of the book isn't clear it takes a lot longer to get the book ready for proofreading (since I do some preliminary spellchecking and cleanup before uploading the files). Scanning time itself actually isn't as much of an issue, since I can do other stuff while I'm scanning, but fixing up text is tedious. I've learned to be brutal to my bindings, and I'm considering getting a heavy-duty paper cutter to simply completely separate the pages from the spine.
eBay acquisitions include a second Arthur Train novel, which will be shipping via a slow boat from Alaska, and Baroness Orczy's The Old Man in the Corner, a classic mystery collection which I was surprised to see isn't in Project Gutenberg, even though a sequel is. I also have about a dozen volumes of Cornhill magazine, a literary magazine initially edited by Thackeray, each containing six months somewhere from 1861 to 1884. I figure I should have at least one big project. No consecutive volumes yet, but I'll keep an eye on eBay and try to fill in the gaps. (I unfortunately was outbid on the two volumes that contained a rare Trollope novel. Maybe next time.)
