On Line Public Domain Books :0)

Subject: RE: On Line Public Domain Books :0)
From:
Date: 18 Oct 99 - 10:34 PM

Kat: The site is

http://members.xoom.com/chrissawer/mutopia

I am sorry I was too lazy to look it up last night when I made the post. It was well and truly buried in my filesystem.

T: Thanks for the link to Progjec Gutenberg. I was going to mention that one; but I couldn't find my link and I wasn't sure it still existed.

j0_77: Postscript is a language that describes what should be printed on each page of a document. It has free software called "ghostscript" that translates this to printing instructions. In fact pdf is like postscript with some added code to allow hyperlinks and the little hand that moves up and down the page. You don't need that sort of thing for a book that you will print rather than read on the screen. Postscript, like pdf was developed (cribbed?) by Adobe except the specifications have been made public and so anyone can write a program that generates or interprets it. This means that free software can be produced for it, some of which is an improvement on the commercial stuff. The pdf format is still proprietary and only Adobe can develop it and license it. There is also a free postscript viewer that is designed to work with ghostscript called "ghostview"

Murray

Subject: RE: On Line Public Domain Books :0)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Oct 99 - 08:58 PM

There's also the Internet Public Library at http://ipl.lub.lu.se/ - thousands of books, and other stuff, such as magazines.

I'd put it in a clickable form here, but I haven't worked out how to do that yet. But it's well worth the effort of copying it into the address bar and paying it a visit.

www.bigfoot.com/~kevin.mcgrath ( - that's the URL for my site, not a digital book repositary)

Subject: RE: On Line Public Domain Books :0)
From: T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 18 Oct 99 - 07:19 PM

Here is one I should have posted sooner, the venerable Project Gutenberg. T.

Subject: RE: On Line Public Domain Books :0)
From: j0_77
Date: 18 Oct 99 - 06:46 PM

Hey keep em rolling - love the links - postscript hmmm please elaborate :0)

I agree there is a need to reward people for keeping these books and typing them etc., however in view of the recent activities of certain agencies I felt obliged to somehow react. Err it may be that Public Domain books contain more errrr useful things than the others but I would not know which ones ...hmmmm seems to me a great number of investors with large holidngs in 'media' errr may prefer us to buy books instead.

It is just that the Muddie is mostly a place of acedemic activity and it seemed fitting to have online books as well as folk songs oooopz public domain folk songs. Why would any one imagine Muddie to be a threat to the junk that's printed on main stream CD I cannot imagine - no informed person would buy that anyway. It seems to me that there are different levels of culture here - ours which is mostly structured, planned, evaluated and then consumed, and - theirs which is consumed undigested and excreted as violence in the streets. Of course I would not claim to be an expert.

Subject: RE: On Line Public Domain Books :0)
From: MMario
Date: 18 Oct 99 - 09:56 AM

A public domain music site is at http://www.pdinfo.com/

PD music

Subject: RE: On Line Public Domain Books :0)
From: T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 18 Oct 99 - 09:45 AM

Here is yet another on-line books site.

T.

Subject: RE: On Line Public Domain Books :0)
From: katlaughing
Date: 18 Oct 99 - 08:57 AM

Here is another site. While not free, they do offer electronic downlaod of books for a nominal fee, usually around $2.00. I ahven't explored it, but found it on Bibliofind, so they must be legit.

Thanks for the other Jo. Murray, I'd be very interested in the site you mentioned, if it's not too much trouble.

Thanks, kat

Subject: RE: On Line Public Domain Books :0)
From:
Date: 18 Oct 99 - 08:47 AM

That is an interesting site j0_77! I will spend some time there. Thanks.

Since you have labeled the thread "BS" I will introduce a philosophical point. Acrobat and the .pdf format are proprietary they are neither free in the sense of development or price. For that reason it is better to use postscript. (I know there is a free Acrobat reader; but it is restricted and you need a non-free product to produce the files.

One other thing. There are attempts to produce an online public Domain music page. I seem to have lost the sites; but if there is interest I will try to hunt them up. Most of the music is classical because so much of that is in the public domain.

Murray

Subject: On Line Public Domain Books :0)
From: j0_77
Date: 17 Oct 99 - 02:42 PM

A fun thing to do, I have printed some PD books with my HP printer and it is gureat - only takes a couple of seconds to download em. Acrobat might be a good way to do this kind of stuff.

Clicky thingie to FREE On line books