The Principal Problem of Today's Public-Domain E-Books

Hello all,

The (to my mind) best software for reading e-books on any platform,
Marvin, www.marvinapp.com , is nearing its iPhone release, while the
iPad version has also seen dramatic improvements over the recent
months. I gave away all my Kindle devices to friends and family over
the last few months -- Marvin's features simply blow Kindle (et al.)
out of water, and there's no going back now for me.  :-)

Below is an essay I sent to the Marvin Beta email list earlier today,
and because I discuss Project Gutenberg there, I'm forwarding a copy
of that post to this list.

Alex. Avenarius
www.aboq.org

*****

THE PRINCIPAL PROBLEM OF TODAY'S PUBLIC-DOMAIN E-BOOKS

To me, the principal problem with all the "free"/public-domain e-books
one finds floating on the Web nowadays, is not -- with a single crucial
exception* -- their insufficient, inelegant, or amateurish formatting
(such as that of headings), but the principal problem for me is the
lack of proper bibliographical sourcing of the electronic editions --
or the choice of a poor paper edition as the source for producing the
electronic edition.

* The crucial exception is when formatting carries *meaning* -- then
it must be retained faithfully. For example, if a word within a sentence is
printed in italics, this can alter the meaning/tone of the entire sentence.
To fail to reproduce the word printed in italics in the electronic edition,
is inexcusable. Yet this is frequently a problem especially with the
earliest Project Gutenberg files, which were based on plain-text,
where advanced formatting was not possible. Some producers of such
early editions completely skipped the reproduction of italics (inexcusable!),
while others sought to reproduce italics using crude means (such as
ALL CAPS) -- which is lame but at least tolerable. The problem with Project
Gutenberg is that to this day (!), whenever users search for the e-book
of a famous literary work, the Project Gutenberg search engine (and
others) will seemingly suggest for primary download precisely one of those
earliest, and therefore most fault-ridden, editions of the famous work. Why?
Well, because over the years (and even decades, by now), the early, faulty
edition has (sadly but logically...) accumulated the biggest number of
downloads. Here one can see that the number of downloads alone does
*not* equal higher quality -- in fact, in the case of Project Gutenberg,
it often signals *bad* quality. Yet the general public does not realize this.
And so, even though (say) _Huckleberry Finn_ may today be available
in Project Gutenberg in various editions, the general reader will typically
download and read the *worst* (= earliest) edition of them all. While
a corrected, meticulously produced electronic edition of the same book,
may frequently be ignored, "because it has so few downloads".  :-(
A "chicken and egg" issue, in a sense.

But, apart from this exception regarding formatting (when formatting
carries *meaning*), the principal issue is the lack of proper bibliographical
sourcing. The only books suitable for study from the scholarly point
of view, are those that retain the *exact* content of the books as they
were originally published -- during the writer's lifetime, and ideally,
under the author's supervision. No revisions, modernizations, etc.,
of the author's texts, especially performed after the writer's death, are
permissible from the scholarly point of view. The only tolerable edition
for scholars is one that in the German language is called "wort- und
zeichengetreu", meaning: retaining every single word, and every
single punctuation sign (!), *exactly* as they were in the authoritative
edition released during the writer's lifetime. The issue of punctuation
should not be underestimated: no other linguistic feature gets as much
abused and wilfully distorted in so-called "modern" editions, as arbitrary
changes to the original punctuation in a book. In the world of paper
books, there is a wonderful US edition called "Library of America",
which releases books based on the "wort- und zeichengetreu" principle.
So, what we need in the electronic environment, are editions of the
same quality, as "Library of America" has on paper. Note: LoA is
now also starting to publish some of its releases in the electronic
format, but they tend to be terribly expensive -- dozens of dollars
for a single public-domain book; that is hardly the way to win over
the general public.

Rather, the producers of electronic editions of books should take
care, before producing an EPUB version of a book, to select a reliable
paper edition as the source, and retain it *exactly*. The problem is:
finding a release of (say) _Huckleberry Finn_ from Mark Twain's
lifetime, is more difficult, especially for the typical "amateur/volunteer
digitizer", than just reaching for a random (but corrupted in the
supposedly "modern" way) paperbook edition of the same work
released in our own time.

Well, but at *least* if you don't bother to select a reliable source
paper edition when producing an electronic version of a book, you
should *exactly* indicate in your electronic edition, which paper
edition it was that served as your source. I find that this information
is typically lacking in the free e-books one finds on the Internet.
In fact, if the information is present, it is frequently deliberately
*faked*, to escape copyright concerns. That is: a volunteer may
take a present-day paper edition of _Huckleberry Finn_, produce
an electronic version of it, but then, in the final electronic file,
indicate that an edition from (say) 1914 had been the source -- just so
that no one starts wondering about copyrights for the electronic file.
Yet the wording in the electronic file may well be from 1997, despite
the year "1914" stated at the beginning of the file. Bottom line: it's
frequently a mess.  :-(

I only had a brief look at Marvin's default "Library" before deleting it
(by the way, is there an option to re-download it at a later time? I can't
find it), but I'm afraid the books Kris included in his sample collection,
suffered from the deficiences described above: not just (perhaps) the
insufficient formatting of headings and such (which are largely
cosmetic issues I'd be willing to tolerate), but especially a lack of
proper bibliographic sourcing of each book. Do the books included
in Marvin's default "Library" clearly state on which paper editions
they are based; and are these the *optimal* paper editions on which
to base an electronic edition? And, do they only *state* those editions
to have been the source, or has someone actually verified that the
electronic text truly conforms to the text in that particular paper
edition, preserving the "wort- und zeichengetreu" principle? That is,
is every word, and every punctuation sign in the electronic edition,
*exactly* the same as in the *optimal* source paper edition?

If not, then those electronic editions are not suitable for scholarly
reading. Note: I have nothing, in principle, against "modernized"
editions of classics. I just would never read them myself -- but
reader tastes differ, and other readers might prefer a modernized
electronic edition over the original one. This can be compared to
digital music: an audiophile would refuse to listen to music encoded
in 128kbps MP3 files -- such files simply do not faitfhully enough
preserve the full flavour of the original recording. An audiophile
would probably only accept a loss-free FLAC digital file, nothing less
-- no MP3 recordings of any kind. Because I'm no audiophile, I'm OK
with those inferior 128kbps MP3 files. But, I *am* what you might call
a "digital bibliophile" -- in that nothing except the full flavour of
the original edition of a literary work, will suffice me. Just like an
audiophile will only accept a FLAC recording (or equivalent), and
nothing less -- in the same way, I only accept "wort- und zeichengetreu"
editions of literary works, of the "Library of America" type, and nothing
less.

So, I have nothing against modernized editions of classics -- provided
that they are *clearly labeled* as such, and provided that they are
not *the only editions* offered to the reader of electronic books.
Sadly, neither of these conditions is typically met nowadays.
A typical public-domain e-book will either entirely forego stating
its source -- the paper edition on which it is based; or it will only
briefly (lacking sufficient detail) state it "pro forma", while actually being
based on a different (contemporary) edition; or it will have chosen
an unsuitable, *modernized* paper version of a classic as its source,
without giving the reader a choice. The reader of electronic literature
nowadays is typically only given a single choice: "Here's this [modernized]
electronic EPUB edition of the classic -- take it or leave it!" The
"modernized" part is frequently only implied, and not even stated
explicitly to warn the reader who might *not* wish to read
a "modernized" text.

This is clearly unacceptable, from the scholarly point of view.
And if I remember correctly, the e-books included in Marvin's
default "Library" suffer from the ills mentioned above, too.

Due to this sad state of things, I just can't switch my studies of
literature to Marvin completely. For many classic literary works
I'm reading, a reliable electronic editon ("wort- und zeichengetreu")
simply isn't available. I, therefore, need to locate a *photographed*
PDF file of the original paper edition (or photograph the book myself,
using the fabulous Scanner Pro app on the iPhone), and read *that* edition,
clumsily, in GoodReader. I'm simply not given any other choice!  :-(

For example, my no. 1 favourite writer is Leo Tolstoy. Will I be able
to read his possibly most famous work, the novel _Anna Karenina_,
in Marvin? No... Only in GoodReader. I read Tolstoy in Russian, but as
far as I'm aware, there is not a single reliable Russian EPUB edition
of the novel available online, anywhere, despite expired copyrights.
There are countless *modernized* EPUB editions of _Anna Karenina_,
but apparently no EPUB edition that would satisfy scholarly needs.
And so, I will need to read _Anna Karenina_ in GoodReader, in this
photographed PDF file of an original 1889 Russian edition:
https://www.sugarsync.com/pf/D6495512_1736831_99821?directDownload=true
The first Russian original book edition appeared in 1877/8, so I'm
getting pretty close there; not many corruptions will have been
introduced into the text within the 12 intervening years, especially
because Tolstoy was around until 1910, and wouldn't have knowingly
permitted a "modernized" corruption of his text.

Finally, a separate issue is that of translations. Is Marvin meant to
be software for an international audience, or just for English-speaking
(English-reading) users? If the former, why should Marvin's default
"Library" only include books in English, and not also in some other
languges? Why Dostoyevsky in English tranlation, but not (also,
or primarily) in original Russian? Why Kafka in English translation,
but not (also, or primarily) in original German? Why Plato in English
translation, but not (also, or primarily) in original Old Greek? Etc.  :-)

Naturally, it's easy to criticise, and a lot more difficult to suggest
some practical alternatives for Kris instead. If, indeed, those
alternatives exist. Does a reliable German EPUB edition of Kafka
exist, a reliable Russian EPUB edition of Dostoyevsky, let alone
a reliable Old Greek EPUB edition of Plato? It must be feared that
the answer to all three of these questions is... no.  :-(  It should
be the task of literary scholars and literary institutes around the
world, in the upcoming decades, to ensure that *reliable* EPUB
editions of all classic works, fully meeting all scholarly criteria,
become freely available, so that Kris would then only have the very
easy and pleasurable task of "randomly" picking whatever classic
he prefers, in whatever *original and/or translated* language,
and include it in his sample Marvin "Library".

-- 
Alex. Avenarius
www.aboq.org
[sent via The Bat! 5.4]

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