Re: [Wikisource-l] [Wikipedia-l] Wikisource

On wikipedia-l Florence Devouard wrote: Wikisource is really a much larger project than Wikipedia. Consider any public library: The encyclopedia shelf or quick reference section (Wikipedia) is less than one percent of the whole library (Wikisource). After seven years of writing Wikipedia, we are now getting useful results in many languages. Wikisource might take 70 years. What we can expect during 2009 is some small step forward on this longer path. Taking a single step might sound easy, but it's hard enough to know which direction is forward. If you can achieve real, practical, pragmatic cooperations that actually result in more free content, even if it is not very much, that is probably the best step forward. But you must be prepared that infighting and prestige among public institutions can be tough, especially when it comes to competing for funding. There is a clear risk that this bad image is enforced. Our message that "anybody can contribute" is hard to combine with the prestigeous thinking among the institutions where you seek cooperation. ---- I'd like to recommend an article in the October 2008 issues of the open access journal "First Monday", "Mass book digitization: The deeper story of Google Books and the Open Content Alliance" by Kalev Leetaru, http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2101/2037 This article is just one in a ton of literature on how to scan (or microfilm) books, that have appeared in the last 20 years. But it is interesting because it evaluates two large-scale projects of the last few years, and compares them to each other. Even though "digital libraries" is a new science, it is already full of established truths. Perhaps this is due to the high involvement of public institutions. One such truth is that image compression (with JPEG artifacts) must be avoided at all cost. Both Google Books and the Open Content Alliance (Internet Archive) break this rule, by using consumer-grade digital cameras and JPEG compression, and should thus be considered a waste of time, according to conventional wisdom (or "best current practices"). Still, nobody can avoid being impressed with their results, and so the scientific world needs to revise its understanding of the current state of the art. The author of this article goes to great lengths (in the "Discussion" section) to explain that what these projects do is "access digitization", which is described as something completely different than traditional book scanning: "Before one can compare the two projects, it is important to first realize that both projects are really only access digitization projects, despite the common assertion of OCA captures as preservation digitization. Neither initiative uses an imaging pipeline or capture environment suitable for true preservation scanning. The OCA project outputs variable–resolution JPEG2000 files built from lossy camera–generated JPEG files. A consumer area array digital camera is used to produce images ..." Needless to say, neither Project Gutenberg nor Wikisource are mentioned in this article. Their goals are just too different (what? free content?), their achievements not impressive enough. They are not potential future employers of "digital library" scholars. If you help them or cooperate with them, you will only help mankind in an altruistic fashion (what fools!), you will not help your own professional or academic career. In the article, the Open Content Alliance already plays the role of the fools. They have only (!) digitized 100,000 books, while Google Books has millions. They do not provide the same search capability. And so it goes on. The next time the Internet Archive (OCA) applies for funding or tries to establish cooperations with more institutions, such arguments might be used against them. ---- What Wikisource really needs to do, is to provide an explanation of what it does, and how this goes beyond Google Books' "access digitization". In Europe, this must be set in the perspective of ongoing French, German and EU initiatives (Gallica, Theseus, Quaero, Europeana, ...). When one of those projects applies for funding, it will need to show that it is successful in attracting cooperation partners and that it is a leader among similar projects. We should be prepared that they take any opportunity to define Wikisource as a loser, amateurish, clueless project. This is not because they are evil, only because they do what they can to get the funding they need. Why should museum X or library Y or archive Z cooperate with Wikisource, when it risks being associated with such descriptions of failure? The alternative for that institution might be to cooperate with the successful Google or Gallica. So why is Wikisource superior? This is what we need to explain. Exactly. -- Lars Aronsson (lars(a)aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se