Imran Ghory wrote: What would something like that cost, anyway? My guess is that if someone wanted to do this, the cost would be close to zero anyway, am I wrong? --Jimbo

Hi, Why not some textbooks, I'm sure many professors will give us there works. That might push wikibooks a bit. ciao, tom -- http://www.tomk32.de - just a geek trying to change the world -.- http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:TomK32 /|> http://tomk32.bookcrossing.com / \ http://tinyurl.com/u6de

Fred Bauder wrote: A whole 14 vol. set of the 1931 reprint of the 1917 edition of the English Literature portion recently sold on eBay for $41.00! A 15 vol. 1967 set is currently being offered with a $60.00 opening bid, but no takers. I would not hesitate to bid that on the older version. Luck is only part of it. You also need a nose for bargains, and sometimes a willingness to take risks. When the best opportunities present themselves there is no time to thoroughly check things out at a major library. Two of my recent purchases John Howard Brown's 1897 "Cyclopædia of American Biographies" in 7 volumes for $25.00, and William Shaw's 2 volume1905 "Knights of England" (autographed) for $27.00. The 1976 and 2000 reprints normally sell for about $100.00 when you can find one. From a Wikisource perspective this is a useful idea, but buying these books should not be a central organization function. It should be the contributors that do this since they are the one who will keep the books after they've been scanned. I would be surprised if Wikimedia had any intent to start a rare and old book library. Cost may not be the problem with this proposal. Scanning and proofreading the OCR results is a long and tedious job that may not suit everybody's temperament. Ec

On Dec 26, 2003, at 6:21 AM, Imran Ghory wrote: Have you seen www.wikipedia.org, it's a project that makes huge information gathering and processing easier by distributing the process across many people. ;) Sorry, I really don't mean that to be flippant. Just pointing out that we could probably handle the proofreading within the Wikimedia network. Peter --- Funding for this program comes from Borders without Doctors: The Bookstore Chain That Sounds Like a Charity. --Harry Shearer, Le Show

Peter Jaros wrote: Thinking of Wikisource where the material could be added in relatively large chunks, I would be ashamed of contributing unproofed ocr gibberish. :-) Ec

Cheapest set I can find is http://dogbert.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=214483227 There are odd volumes availble, such as this 1885 Volume 1 http://dogbert.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=224154342 Fred

I expect the reserve is well over $500. Fred