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5.8 KiB
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114 lines
5.8 KiB
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layout: default
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title: Volunteers' FAQ (old) | Project Gutenberg
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permalink: /attic/volunteers_faq.html
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---
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Volunteers' FAQ (old)
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=====================
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Project Gutenberg welcomes contributions of eBooks from people with the interest, time,
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and skillset needed to meet our submission standards. Details of the process and the standards
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are at our copyright clearance site (https://copy.pglaf.org) and upload site (https://upload.pglaf.org).
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Join Distributed Proofreaders, Instead
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--------------------------------------
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For most people interested in producing eBooks, we recommend starting with Distributed Proofreaders (https://www.pgdp.net).
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With Distributed Proofreaders, you can get involved with different portions of the production pipeline
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described below. This is a much easier way to get started, and results in very high quality eBooks.
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If you simply want to suggest a book for digitization, DP has online forums for this, or you can
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simply send an email (contact information is on the site).
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Being a Solo Producer
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---------------------
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If you might be interested in producing an eBook yourself, here is some guidance.
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These steps are for eBooks that are in the public domain in the US, usually because the source
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printed book was published, and then the term of copyright protection expired. **Project Gutenberg
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does not accept contemporary or copyrighted works. See our How-To on submitting your own work,
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for information about our self-publishing portal.**
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Note also that Project Gutenberg does not have a corps of volunteers who can take
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your partially-completed work and turn it into a completed eBook. Instead, join Distributed
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Proofreaders to be part of a larger group with many shared roles. But if there is a problem
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with your ability to complete a digitization process, and you would like to
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submit partial work for safekeeping for possible future completion, contact us.
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Generally, and as detailed at the upload site, Project Gutenberg eBooks are submitted as
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fully valid HTML, with accompanying plain text. Two other formats are less frequently utilized:
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ReStructured text (RST), and LaTeX (which is used mainly for mathematical works). Automated
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conversion to derivative formats, including the MOBI (Kindle) and EPUB formats, occurs
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on the Project Gutenberg website back-end.
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In a nutshell, the production process typically involves the following:
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- Identify a candidate printed book. Confirm it is not already in the collection,
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or in process by other volunteers.
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- Obtain a copyright clearance for the printed book. Usually this is based on
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scanned title page and verso page demonstrating the printed book was published
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more than 95 years ago.
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- Obtain scans of the book. This may be done using your own scanner, or there
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might be online scans from one of the eBook projects. Scans must come from the
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exact same print edition as your copyright clearance.
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- Perform optical character recognition (OCR) on the scans, to make an approximate
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representation of the book in plain text.
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- Proofread, proofread, proofread: "Fix" the OCR output by carefully fixing any
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errors it made. Remove page headers & footers. De-hyphenate. Add back italics or
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other formatting.
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- Format: Generate the HTML source. Different tools are available for this, and
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usually involve editing the HTML source code directly. Note that many tools produce
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convoluted, non-standard, or non-valid HTML, which can be very difficult to clean
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up for Project Gutenberg.
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- Check, and recheck. The upload site has various tools, including to test proper
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conversion to derived formats.
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- Upload your work, using the copyright clearance key generated earlier.
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- Coordinate with the Project Gutenberg production volunteers (known as "whitewashers,"
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after the Mark Twain book) on final formatting and presentation.
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- Once the eBook is added to the Project Gutenberg collection, confirm it is
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appearing correctly, and all metadata are correct.
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- If possible, stay in touch into the future. If we receive errata reports that
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require access to source material, or are stylistic or subjective in nature, we
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might get in touch to discuss potential changes.
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More about HTML
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---------------
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Project Gutenberg is not in the business of teaching HTML,
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however nearly all Project Gutenberg's editions now have
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both text and HTML files. The HTML files are not only
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important in themselves but are the master files for the
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auto-production of each eBook's mobile viewer files: .mobi
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and .epub. Almost one third of Project Gutenberg eBooks are
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now read these eBook formats.
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A good starting point is to look at the HTML of a similar eBook from
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the Project Gutenberg collection - or peruse a few. See how the simplicity
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of structural markup is presented, perhaps by inclusion of cascading style
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sheets (CSS), into a beautiful and functional ebook.
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It is fascinating to learn how to produce valid HTML files and
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there are many programs to help: https://www.w3schools.com/html/html_editors.asp
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is one of many sources.
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In Project Gutenberg HTML eBooks, you can see the HTML code in many
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different tools, including Notepad, NoteTab or word
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processors. The headings and footers of all our eBooks are
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very similar. The body of the file has text with various
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HTML tags such as
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<p>....</p>, <pre>....</pre>, <h2>....</h2>
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to make the html display give the text
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enclosed between these html tags apppear differently.
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If you start with plain text, there are two very helpful programs that producers utilize: "guiguts"
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at https://sourceforge.net/projects/guiguts/available
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and "pg2html.exe," an early DP program. These are valuable in the
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first steps of producing an html file from a properly
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formatted text file.
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Try to turn a very simple text file into an HTML ebook
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and you are started on your way to more complex files with
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the aid of the instructions in the references in
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https://www.w3schools.com/html/html_editors.asp.
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