Quote:
Originally Posted by badgoodDeb
My first re-action to "unglue it" is that they are pulling the book apart, scanning and OCRing the pages, and thus illegally creating an ebook. But I've never looked at what books they have.
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Yeah, I think that it would be better for them to take a name that is descriptively more accurate. But it is kinda cute (I can't believe that I, a man, said, "cute").
I definitely do not believe that they are illegally copying ebooks. That is true because of a lot of impressions (and facts) that I've gathered from exploring the site, and about the books that they are unglueing (sp?). Besides, no one wants most of the books that they offer (sorry to say, but it's true--most OA books seem to appeal to just a limited number of people--like the one that I posted just a little while ago). If I was going to illegally copy a book, I'd choose something that people actually wanted--a bestseller or something. So, I think that I am standing on very solid ground; however, if you never "see" me again, you'll know what happened. Come visit me in Sing Sing.
I know that you spoke of your "first impression" being that they are pulling the book apart (the idea of literally unglueing (sp?) it), then scanning the pages, etc. That is certainly what it sounds like--that's one reason that I dislike the name. I do not claim to know much about this, but that is unnecessary in this day and time. Back in the "old days," to copy from a book you often had to put the open book on a platen (I think that it is called--the glass surface) and push the book down hard. If you didn't, the text near the inner margins either wouldn't be readable, or be possible to read, but distorted; it might not be readable even then. A scanner would have even a worse time, I would think. On top of that, imagine the damage to a book--the spine, in particular--that would occur. There might be cases in which one or more books were broken apart (unglued?) to get the job done. The high-end machines to scan printed things, that they have nowadays, are amazing; unfortunately, I know little about them. But somehow one or more companies have created machines and systems where you don't have to open the book very much at all, to scan (in most cases) or copy texts, and they turn out magnificently. I have seen a documentary (or maybe read this in a magazine) about the Library of Congress; they use such equipment profusely. The machines look little or nothing like scanners that we would think of. Another, even more amazing use is for scanning rare, extremely delicate manuscripts. I have read an article about Bible (probably specializing in the New Testament, but I don't remember at this moment) scholar Daniel B. Wallace's (if you look him up, I think that he is associated with Dallas Theological Seminary) project to go into libraries around the world, which have ancient manuscripts of the Bible, and scan them (I think that, at some time, he plans to put all of these on the Internet). You would think that a library with a rare, extremely fragile manuscript wouldn't even let him through the door, but the equipment that he has does not require that anyone even touch the manuscripts; the libraries, at least generally speaking, seem to have no reticence to accommodate his wishes, once he tells them how things would be done.
I happen to be very interested in this subject right now. I own an old (1835), extremely rare book. However, except for the signs of ageing, it is in pristine condition--it appears as though it has never been used. It's not worth particularly much, because of its obscurity, etc. If it was a first edition of, say, Dickens'
Pickwick Papers, which was published near the same time . . . . well, let's just say that my lifestyle would change markedly if I sold it. I am donating this rare book of mine to a library, where it can be kept in a fireproof place and otherwise be kept properly (which entails putting it in a cool, low humidity environment, they tell me). The book isn't on the Internet Archive, or anywhere on the Internet, so far as I can determine. I hope that someone will come along some day and digitize it. But considering the age of the book, and the fact that it hasn't been kept in anywhere near ideal conditions most of the time, the book would need the equipment like I mentioned above in order to keep from damaging it. Of course, once I give it away, I will no longer have any control over that.
Thanks for your comment. I know that I've written a lot, but I've been drinking on a large iced coffee for the last 2 or 3 hours, and I'm "wired."