Project Gutenberg got its first boost with the invention of the web in
1990, and its second boost with the creation of Distributed
Proofreaders in 2000, to share the proofreading of digitized books
between many volunteers. Volunteers choose a book currently processed
through the site to proofread a given page, or several pages, as they
wish. One page per day is a great goal. It doesn't seem much, but with
hundreds of volunteers it really adds up.
# A website launched in 2000
Distributed Proofreaders (DP) was founded in October 2000 by Charles
Franks to support the digitization of public domain books. From the
website one can access a program that allows several proofreaders to be
working on the same book at the same time, each proofreading on
different pages. The goal is to all work together – from any region in
the world - to significantly speed up the proofreading process.
Originally conceived to assist Project Gutenberg (PG), Distributed
Proofreaders is now the main source of PG ebooks. In 2002, DP became an
official PG site. In May 2006, DP became a separate legal entity and
continues to maintain a strong relationship with PG.
Distributed Proofreaders counted 3,000 ebooks "preserved for the world"
in February 2004, 5,000 ebooks in October 2004, 7,000 ebooks in May
2005, 10,000 ebooks in December 2006, 11,950 ebooks in January 2008,
and 18,848 ebooks on 15 October 2010. Production was 196 titles in
October 2010.
# How all this works
Volunteers register and receive detailed instructions. For example,
words in bold, italic or underlined, or footnotes are always treated
the same way for any ebook. A discussion forum allows them to ask
questions or seek help at any time.
Each time proofreaders go to the website, they choose the book they
want. One page of the book appears in two forms side by side: the
scanned image of one page, and the text from that image as produced by
OCR software. The proofreader can easily compare both versions, note
the differences, and fix them. OCR is usually 99% accurate, which makes
for about 10 corrections a page. The proofreader saves the page as it
is completed, and then can either stop work or do another.
The books are proofread twice, and the second time only by experienced
proofreaders.
All the pages of the book are then formatted, combined and assembled by
post-processors to make an ebook.
A project manager oversees the progress of a particular book through
its different steps on the website.
The ebook is now ready to be released in Project Gutenberg with an
index entry (title, subtitle, author, ebook number, and character set)
for the database. Catalogers go on with the cataloguing process
(author's dates of birth and death, Library of Congress classification,
etc.) after the release.
# Everyone is welcome
New volunteers are most welcome, and will be guided by experienced
volunteers for their first steps. There is a lot to do, and everyone is
welcome.
As stated on DP's website in 2005, "Remember that there is no
commitment expected on this site. Proofread as often or as seldom as
you like, and as many or as few pages as you like. We encourage people
to do 'a page a day', but it's entirely up to you! We hope you will
join us in our mission of 'preserving the literary history of the world
in a freely available form for everyone to use'."
# Distributed Proofreaders Europe
Distributed Proofreaders Europe (DP Europe) was launched in early 2004
by Project Rastko in Belgrade, Serbia, as well as Project Gutenberg
Europe. DP Europe uses the software of the original Distributed
Proofreaders.
Since its beginning, DP Europe has been a multilingual website, with
its main pages translated into the main national European languages by
volunteer translators. DP Europe was available in 12 languages as early
as April 2004. The long-term goal is 60 languages representing most
European languages.
In May 2005, DP Europe finished processing its 100th ebook. Ebooks were
in several languages to reflect European linguistic diversity. 600
ebooks were ready in February 2009, and 732 ebooks on 15 October 2010.
DP Europe supports Unicode to be able to proofread ebooks in numerous
languages. Unicode is an encoding system created in 1991 that gives a
unique number for every character in any language. Unicode is meant to
replace ASCII, an encoding system dating back from 1968 that can only
handle English and Latin in its “original” version, and a few European
languages with accents in its “extended” version. In 2008, half of the
files available on the internet were Unicode files.
# Distributed Proofreaders Canada
Distributed Proofreaders Canada (DPC) started production in December
2007, to digitize and proofread ebooks for Project Gutenberg Canada
(PGC), founded on July 1st, 2007, on Canada Day, by Michael Shepard and
David Jones. There were 100 ebooks in March 2008, in English, French
and Italian. 250 ebooks were available in February 2009, and 427 books
on October 15, 2010.
# A few numbers
= Over 33,000 high-quality proofread ebooks in Project Gutenberg, in
several languages. (Quality more than quantity is what really matters
to the reader, believe me.)
= 18,961 ebooks processed by Distributed Proofreaders (the original
website) on November 1st, 2010, since its creation in October 2000,
with 2,352 active volunteers in October 2010.
= 739 ebooks processed by Distributed Proofreaders Europe on November
1st, 2010, since its creation on January 2004.
= 433 ebooks processed by Distributed Proofreaders Canada on November
1st, 2010, since its creation in December 2007, with 127 active
volunteers in October 2010.
# A few links
Project Gutenberg,
https://www.gutenberg.org/
with 33,000 high-quality proofread ebooks.
Distributed Proofreaders,
http://www.pgdp.net/c/
launched in October 2000.
Distributed Proofreaders Europe,
http://dp.rastko.net/
launched in early 2004, with a plurilingual interface, and books to
proofread in several languages.
Distributed Proofreaders Canada,
http://www.pgdpcanada.net/c/default.php
launched in December 2007.
Volunteers are most welcome on the three websites – with no geographic
requirements - because there are no borders for beautiful literary
works to be “preserved for the world”.