[ramanuja] RE: ibiblio & content contributions

[Guest guest]

"krishna kashyap" <kkalale1

 

 

> How can anyone scan in old texts. That way we can store the info.

> If you can find out what tools are needed and how one can do that it

> will be great

>

 

The process of bringing out a text electronically involves the following

Note: A variantof this process was used for the Sri bhasya

 

1. A copyright clearance process.

Depending on the text in question, and the need for distribution this

would be one of the following

a) All texts "first" printed pre-1923 are free of copyright as a general

rule

of thumb.

b) For those printed later permission from either the author, publisher or

estate.

 

2. Scanning in

All this requires is a $49-$69 scanner for most works and once attached

to a computer this can be easily scanned in. The files are typically saved

in .png format to take advantage of space etc.

 

3. OCR (Optical Character Recognition)

Typically, the scanner comes with OCR software. For english texts the

scanned image can be OCR'd to produce raw digital text output. This

will typically have numerous errors and would need proofing

Although recently a Sanskrit OCR has been announced by Dr.

Venugopal http://www.cedar.buffalo.edu/ILT it's efficacy is yet to

be determined. For Tamil texts none exist, although I have been working

with Project Madurai who are now testing out the Distributed Proofreading

software url - http://www.tamil.net/projectmadurai

 

 

4. Proofread the OCR'd text.

This can be done manually or through the use of a Distributed Proofreading

process.

for. e.g. http://www.pgdp.net

 

5. Release the e-text

If it is copyright free, typically at the start of the process one would use

the legal

services of a group such as Project guttenbewrg to ensure that it is free of

copyright free and subsequetly Project Guttenberg would e-release it in

their

collection.

 

Since images etc. take up significant web-space i.e. in the gigabytes

besides needing wide exposure, sripedia.org has gained official status

with ibiblio giving it wide exposure, mirroring on mulitple locations

worldwide

and access to as-large-as needed web space and bandwidth. Note

archive.org is way beyond tera and now reaching petabytes in storage.

 

Please feel free to ask me any further questions that you may have.

 

Thanks

Srinivasan Sriram