Page numbers in ebooks for scholarly research? - Page 8

Patricia · 11-09-2007, 05:29 PM

Truly, it is difficult to believe Bowerbird's description of himself as a 'gentle soul' as credited beneath his name.

bowerbird · 11-09-2007, 05:32 PM

patricia said:
> Truly, it is difficult to believe Bowerbird's description of himself
> as a 'gentle soul' as credited beneath his name.

***

alexander said:
> Already too many threads got side-tracked by
> talking about you rather than about the subject of the thread.

i agree with you, alexander...

-bowerbird

NatCh · 11-09-2007, 05:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patricia

Truly, it is difficult to believe Bowerbird's description of himself as a 'gentle soul' as credited beneath his name.

We can all edit our titles from the User Control Panel, Patricia, though the system does seem to have a stock of standard ones that it uses based on posting numbers, near as I can tell.

Panurge · 11-11-2007, 12:35 AM

Bowerbird: "panurge said:
> I don't think a representation of
> the print copy in its visual layout is necessary,
> just an exact transcription of the content.

well, i can understand a desire for that kind of product.

but i have absolutely no interest in making such a thing.

_my_ target is the human reader in the 21st century, so
i see my job as bringing that old p-book into cyberspace."

I think that the recent posts have been getting back to the subject at hand, so let's clarify and sum up the main points. The questions under discussion seem to be 1) How do we identify the 21st century e-book as a unique object so that something on the order of an ISBN number can be assigned to it (there have been several suggestions so far)? 2) in the case of what we might call a "virtual reprint" or "electronic re-edition" of a book, which features are essential to preserve? and 3) what kind of markup language, format, or programming might accomplish these things?
In the past when books were reprinted, they were reset typographically for the most part, so that pagination was different. In some cases, the American and British editions of the same book from the same publisher were different--to the point of exhibiting fresh typos in one or the other. Nevertheless, if you referred to a page number and gave the relevant publication data (place, publisher, edition--where different from the 1st edition--date of publication), you could at least locate the citation. If the text of a print book is accurately reproduced in an electronic edition, that should suffice for most purposes. One needn't preserve the original page numbers unless it is important to refer back to the original print edition.
But in some cases, that becomes important. Allow me to offer an example. Lewis Carroll was fastidious about the placement of illustrations in relation to text in Alice and Wonderland. Nevertheless, few reprints respect his intentions. There have been a few facsimile editions or photo-offset printings, including an excellent PDF e-book version a number of years ago that preserved the exact page layout of the original editions. Most don't. Here the PDF format served a useful purpose. The ability to reflow text would not be appropriate in this instance.
So one must discriminate. Most books have illustrations that are placed as closely as practical to the text which refers to them, but often as not they have to be located at some distance elsewhere in the volume (particularly if they are in color). Hyperlinks surely improve on the original in that case. Although for Alice in Wonderland, hyperlinked images might be an interesting alternative mode of presentation, they wouldn't represent the author's original intention. In some cases that would be difficult to accomplish because the image is tied to the format of a print book. Example: in Through the Looking-Glass, when Alice goes through the mirror, the two before and after images in the original edition were printed in exact register on the front and back of the same sheet, so that when you turned the page, she "passed" through the mirror, as it were. Again, few of the many subsequent print editions of the book after the author's lifetime respect that feature.
Of course, I am speaking of a small number of exceptions. Most books do not offer these kinds of peculiar problems of reproduction. In the vast majority of cases, even the page numbers are not important in an electronic edition, unless we regard the e-book as a mere ghost of the original, not as an edition in its own right. What makes it an edition in its own right is some way of identifying or cataloguing it as distinctive or unique, just like a reprint or new edition of a print book.
I hope that I am being clear about this point and not merely verbose; it has already taken far too many words to explain the nature of the problem. But if we want electronic texts to be universally acceptable and appreciated, especially among future scholars or academics, then we have to treat them at least as seriously as we have treated reliable print editions in the past. I think that the discussion has generated some very good ideas so far, and I hope that they can be further elaborated and put to use in a fruitful way, especially if we want all these wonderful volunteer efforts to make free e-books available to all and have them receive the respect they deserve--as I think we all do.

aapezzuto · 11-11-2007, 06:41 AM

Im sorry to be jumping in this so late...

This is an interesting problem, but I think that it is important to accept that the current system is a hack-job as well. The current system is the equivalent to "gotten from page 57 of the book downloaded from www.something.com version 52.01b on sept 15 2005, viewed on a reb 1150, at medium font size, using default fonts." The exact printing, and page number have to be referenced, as well as enough information to distinguish the work. All this mess to get what level of granularity? You only get within a few paragraphs! So the first question in looking forward is what level of granularity do you want to have, and what should it be based on. Looking back the only real option is to have a page by page reference (paper or electronic) of every thing that has ever been printed... It is a broken system!

As far as reference, I think that a system of smaller granularity chunks until the desired resolution is gained would be idea. Choices like what sorts of content are "valid" at each level would be important, but in normal works chapter, paragraph, and then character range would be possible. Section, sentence, word would be similarly reasonable. The most important part of this would be having a standard. Having a standard edition to pull from is similarly important.

If a standard was adopted, the first big sign that it was being used would be that academic, printed journals would adopt the numbering in their publications. I think this would be just amazing... as the current system was accepted based on its retrospective convenience, and little else.

If such a system was adopted, I think the next question would be, how would you update all of the archaic references in previously printed works?

Life and times of Bilbo Baggins, page 54
might become
Life and times of Bilbo Baggins, v1.00: chapter 2: paragraph:16-19

thats not all bad is it?

nekokami · 11-11-2007, 10:05 AM

What all this makes me think of is that a tool like the iLiad (which seems to be becoming preferred hardware for scholarly use of ebooks) ought to be able to tell the reader more granular information about where the reader is in the book, e.g. what paragraph the reader clicks on. Probably that would need to be an enhancement to FBReader and ipdf.

This doesn't in any way disagree with what's been said above about the importance of a unique identifier per edition, etc., I'm just noting that our ebook reading software currently doesn't display the relevant information even if we address those issues.

bowerbird · 11-11-2007, 11:09 AM

first decide how to count paragraphs. (it's not that easy.)

kovidgoyal · 11-11-2007, 11:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bowerbird

first decide how to count paragraphs. (it's not that easy.)

Only in txt files, apart from that it's not that hard ;-)

bowerbird · 11-11-2007, 11:48 AM

provide the program to do it for (1) html, (2) pdf, and (3) rtf, and i'll believe you...

kovidgoyal · 11-11-2007, 11:59 AM

See pdf2lrf, html2lrf and rtf2lrf. LRF has a well defined notion of what a paragraph is, so my mapping implicitly identifies paragraphs.

It's not perfect in that it will treat heading as paragraphs as well, but I don't see that being a problem for reference work.

And I cant really take the credit for pdf and rtf as I use other people converters to convert them to html first.

And also note that these mappings are not infallible. You can produce files that humans would think contain paragraphs but the converters dont. However, as demonstrated by the wide use of these tools they are largely successful on real world files.

bowerbird · 11-11-2007, 12:52 PM

so the counting isn't "perfect", and the mappings are "not infallible". that's my point.

kovidgoyal · 11-11-2007, 12:59 PM

And they never will be. If you think different, you're going to be disappointed. And really information isn't that fragile. A little bit of fuzziness doesn't matter.

bowerbird · 11-11-2007, 01:06 PM

how much "fuzziness" do we want to allow in our referencing system? (i can't answer that.)

kovidgoyal · 11-11-2007, 01:08 PM

As far as referencing is concerned, the fuzziness doesn't matter at all, since whatever fuzziness is there, it is consistent.

bowerbird · 11-11-2007, 01:41 PM

huh? if a pointer points to the wrong place, because of miscounting, is that acceptable?

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11-09-2007, 05:29 PM	#106
Patricia Reader Posts: 11,504 Karma: 8720163 Join Date: May 2007 Location: South Wales, UK Device: Sony PRS-500, PRS-505, Asus EEEpc 4G	Truly, it is difficult to believe Bowerbird's description of himself as a 'gentle soul' as credited beneath his name.

11-09-2007, 05:32 PM	#107
bowerbird Banned Posts: 269 Karma: -273 Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: los angeles	patricia said: > Truly, it is difficult to believe Bowerbird's description of himself > as a 'gentle soul' as credited beneath his name. *** alexander said: > Already too many threads got side-tracked by > talking about you rather than about the subject of the thread. i agree with you, alexander... -bowerbird

11-11-2007, 12:35 AM	#109
Panurge Enthusiast Posts: 34 Karma: 336 Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Texas Device: Sony Reader	Bowerbird: "panurge said: > I don't think a representation of > the print copy in its visual layout is necessary, > just an exact transcription of the content. well, i can understand a desire for that kind of product. but i have absolutely no interest in making such a thing. _my_ target is the human reader in the 21st century, so i see my job as bringing that old p-book into cyberspace." I think that the recent posts have been getting back to the subject at hand, so let's clarify and sum up the main points. The questions under discussion seem to be 1) How do we identify the 21st century e-book as a unique object so that something on the order of an ISBN number can be assigned to it (there have been several suggestions so far)? 2) in the case of what we might call a "virtual reprint" or "electronic re-edition" of a book, which features are essential to preserve? and 3) what kind of markup language, format, or programming might accomplish these things? In the past when books were reprinted, they were reset typographically for the most part, so that pagination was different. In some cases, the American and British editions of the same book from the same publisher were different--to the point of exhibiting fresh typos in one or the other. Nevertheless, if you referred to a page number and gave the relevant publication data (place, publisher, edition--where different from the 1st edition--date of publication), you could at least locate the citation. If the text of a print book is accurately reproduced in an electronic edition, that should suffice for most purposes. One needn't preserve the original page numbers unless it is important to refer back to the original print edition. But in some cases, that becomes important. Allow me to offer an example. Lewis Carroll was fastidious about the placement of illustrations in relation to text in Alice and Wonderland. Nevertheless, few reprints respect his intentions. There have been a few facsimile editions or photo-offset printings, including an excellent PDF e-book version a number of years ago that preserved the exact page layout of the original editions. Most don't. Here the PDF format served a useful purpose. The ability to reflow text would not be appropriate in this instance. So one must discriminate. Most books have illustrations that are placed as closely as practical to the text which refers to them, but often as not they have to be located at some distance elsewhere in the volume (particularly if they are in color). Hyperlinks surely improve on the original in that case. Although for Alice in Wonderland, hyperlinked images might be an interesting alternative mode of presentation, they wouldn't represent the author's original intention. In some cases that would be difficult to accomplish because the image is tied to the format of a print book. Example: in Through the Looking-Glass, when Alice goes through the mirror, the two before and after images in the original edition were printed in exact register on the front and back of the same sheet, so that when you turned the page, she "passed" through the mirror, as it were. Again, few of the many subsequent print editions of the book after the author's lifetime respect that feature. Of course, I am speaking of a small number of exceptions. Most books do not offer these kinds of peculiar problems of reproduction. In the vast majority of cases, even the page numbers are not important in an electronic edition, unless we regard the e-book as a mere ghost of the original, not as an edition in its own right. What makes it an edition in its own right is some way of identifying or cataloguing it as distinctive or unique, just like a reprint or new edition of a print book. I hope that I am being clear about this point and not merely verbose; it has already taken far too many words to explain the nature of the problem. But if we want electronic texts to be universally acceptable and appreciated, especially among future scholars or academics, then we have to treat them at least as seriously as we have treated reliable print editions in the past. I think that the discussion has generated some very good ideas so far, and I hope that they can be further elaborated and put to use in a fruitful way, especially if we want all these wonderful volunteer efforts to make free e-books available to all and have them receive the respect they deserve--as I think we all do.

11-11-2007, 06:41 AM	#110
aapezzuto Zealot Posts: 116 Karma: 693 Join Date: Sep 2007 Device: none	Im sorry to be jumping in this so late... This is an interesting problem, but I think that it is important to accept that the current system is a hack-job as well. The current system is the equivalent to "gotten from page 57 of the book downloaded from www.something.com version 52.01b on sept 15 2005, viewed on a reb 1150, at medium font size, using default fonts." The exact printing, and page number have to be referenced, as well as enough information to distinguish the work. All this mess to get what level of granularity? You only get within a few paragraphs! So the first question in looking forward is what level of granularity do you want to have, and what should it be based on. Looking back the only real option is to have a page by page reference (paper or electronic) of every thing that has ever been printed... It is a broken system! As far as reference, I think that a system of smaller granularity chunks until the desired resolution is gained would be idea. Choices like what sorts of content are "valid" at each level would be important, but in normal works chapter, paragraph, and then character range would be possible. Section, sentence, word would be similarly reasonable. The most important part of this would be having a standard. Having a standard edition to pull from is similarly important. If a standard was adopted, the first big sign that it was being used would be that academic, printed journals would adopt the numbering in their publications. I think this would be just amazing... as the current system was accepted based on its retrospective convenience, and little else. If such a system was adopted, I think the next question would be, how would you update all of the archaic references in previously printed works? Life and times of Bilbo Baggins, page 54 might become Life and times of Bilbo Baggins, v1.00: chapter 2: paragraph:16-19 thats not all bad is it?

11-11-2007, 10:05 AM	#111
nekokami fruminous edugeek Posts: 6,745 Karma: 551260 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Northeast US Device: iPad, eBw 1150	What all this makes me think of is that a tool like the iLiad (which seems to be becoming preferred hardware for scholarly use of ebooks) ought to be able to tell the reader more granular information about where the reader is in the book, e.g. what paragraph the reader clicks on. Probably that would need to be an enhancement to FBReader and ipdf. This doesn't in any way disagree with what's been said above about the importance of a unique identifier per edition, etc., I'm just noting that our ebook reading software currently doesn't display the relevant information even if we address those issues.

11-11-2007, 11:09 AM	#112
bowerbird Banned Posts: 269 Karma: -273 Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: los angeles	first decide how to count paragraphs. (it's not that easy.)

11-11-2007, 11:48 AM	#114
bowerbird Banned Posts: 269 Karma: -273 Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: los angeles	provide the program to do it for (1) html, (2) pdf, and (3) rtf, and i'll believe you...

11-11-2007, 11:59 AM	#115
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 45,261 Karma: 27110894 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	See pdf2lrf, html2lrf and rtf2lrf. LRF has a well defined notion of what a paragraph is, so my mapping implicitly identifies paragraphs. It's not perfect in that it will treat heading as paragraphs as well, but I don't see that being a problem for reference work. And I cant really take the credit for pdf and rtf as I use other people converters to convert them to html first. And also note that these mappings are not infallible. You can produce files that humans would think contain paragraphs but the converters dont. However, as demonstrated by the wide use of these tools they are largely successful on real world files.

11-11-2007, 12:52 PM	#116
bowerbird Banned Posts: 269 Karma: -273 Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: los angeles	so the counting isn't "perfect", and the mappings are "not infallible". that's my point.

11-11-2007, 12:59 PM	#117
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 45,261 Karma: 27110894 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	And they never will be. If you think different, you're going to be disappointed. And really information isn't that fragile. A little bit of fuzziness doesn't matter.

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11-11-2007, 01:06 PM	#118
bowerbird Banned Posts: 269 Karma: -273 Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: los angeles	how much "fuzziness" do we want to allow in our referencing system? (i can't answer that.)

11-11-2007, 01:08 PM	#119
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 45,261 Karma: 27110894 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	As far as referencing is concerned, the fuzziness doesn't matter at all, since whatever fuzziness is there, it is consistent.

11-11-2007, 01:41 PM	#120
bowerbird Banned Posts: 269 Karma: -273 Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: los angeles	huh? if a pointer points to the wrong place, because of miscounting, is that acceptable?