While there are plenty of places where you can download free and accurately-transcribed public domain ebooks, we feel the quality of those ebooks can often be greatly improved.
For example, Project Gutenberg, a major producer of public-domain ebooks, hosts epub and Kindle files that sometimes lack basic typographic necessities like curly quotes; some of those ebooks are automatically generated and can’t take full advantage of modern ereader technology like popup footnotes or popup tables of contents; they sometimes lack niceties like cover images and title pages; and the quality of individual ebook productions varies greatly.
Archival sites like the Internet Archive (and even Project Gutenberg, to some extent) painstakingly preserve entire texts word-for-word, including original typos and ephemera that are of limited interest to modern readers: everything including centuries-old publishing marks, advertisements for long-vanished publishers, author bios, deeply archaic spellings, and so on. Sometimes all you get is a scan of the actual book pages. That’s great for researchers, archivists, and special-interest readers, but not that great for casual, modern readers.
-The Standard Ebooks project differs from those etext projects in that we aim to make free public domain ebooks that are carefully typeset, cleaned of ancient and irrelevant ephemera, take full advantage of modern ereading technology, are formatted according to a detailed style guide, and that are each held to a standard of quality and internal consistency. Standard Ebooks include carefully chosen cover art based on public domain artwork, and are presented in an attractive way on your ebookshelf. For technically-inclined readers, Standard Ebooks conform to a rigorous coding style, are completely open source, and are hosted on Github, so anyone can contribute corrections or improvements easily and directly without having to deal with baroque forums or opaque processes.
+The Standard Ebooks project differs from those etext projects in that we aim to make free public domain ebooks that are carefully typeset, cleaned of ancient and irrelevant ephemera, take full advantage of modern ereading technology, are formatted according to a detailed style guide, and that are each held to a standard of quality and internal consistency. Standard Ebooks include carefully chosen cover art based on public domain artwork, and are presented in an attractive way on your ebookshelf. For technically-inclined readers, Standard Ebooks conform to a rigorous coding style, are completely open source, and are hosted on GitHub, so anyone can contribute corrections or improvements easily and directly without having to deal with baroque forums or opaque processes.
Standard Ebooks is a volunteer driven project, and there’s room for people of all skill levels to contribute.
-At the most basic level, anyone can contribute feedback via our mailing list. Day-to-day readers can tell us about errors they spot in our ebooks. People with an eye for typography and a talent for editing can proofread whole ebooks. Technically inclined readers can produce ebooks themselves, or contribute via Github.
+At the most basic level, anyone can contribute feedback via our mailing list. Day-to-day readers can tell us about errors they spot in our ebooks. People with an eye for typography and a talent for editing can proofread whole ebooks. Technically inclined readers can produce ebooks themselves, or contribute via GitHub.
Advances in ereading devices and software have made proofreading ebooks a whole lot easier than in the past.
Most ereading software allows you to highlight text and add notes to those highlights. If you’re using a device like a Kindle or a phone or tablet with the Google Play Books app, try holding your finger on some text. It’ll become highlighted, and you can drag the highlight to include more text if you like.
That means the quickest way for you to proofread an ebook is to transfer it to your ereader and start reading! Once you find an error, use the highlight feature to mark it, and keep on reading. Many errors, like mis-curled quotation marks or obvious spelling errors, don’t need a written note to accompany the highlight. But you should make a brief written note if the error wouldn’t be clear to a passing reader.
-Once you’ve finished the ebook, use your ereader’s “view all notes” option to find all of your highlights in one place. Then you can either report them to us, or if you’re technically-minded, correct them directly in the ebook’s Github repository. Remember to read our typography manual to make sure the error you found is covered.
+Once you’ve finished the ebook, use your ereader’s “view all notes” option to find all of your highlights in one place. Then you can either report them to us, or if you’re technically-minded, correct them directly in the ebook’s GitHub repository. Remember to read our typography manual to make sure the error you found is covered.
Lots of different errors can occur during the long and complex process of digitizing a print book, but here are some of the more common ones:
diff --git a/www/contribute/toolset.php b/www/contribute/toolset.php index a644382c..c056caf3 100644 --- a/www/contribute/toolset.php +++ b/www/contribute/toolset.php @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ require_once('Core.php');You can view our toolset on Github.
+You can view our toolset on GitHub.
Contributions should be in Python 3.
In general we follow a relaxed version of PEP 8. In particular, we use tabs instead of spaces, and there is no line length limit.
Always use the regex module instead of the re module.