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Date:
Mon, 3 Sep 2001 18:16:04 -0700
Subject:
From:
Janos Gereben <[log in to unmask]>
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Would you like to download Shaw's "The Perfect Wagnerite" free and easy...
and legally? A magnificent organization by the name of Project Gutenberg
makes that possible, providing free access to thousands of books on-line,
including many books on music.  The books are in text format, which means
small files, quick downloads, and the ability to read the books with any
online display editor on any platform.  For information about Project
Gutenberg, go to http://promo.net/pg/, and use the index to find authors
or titles.  To download the Shaw book, you have the option of getting the
245Kb text file at:

   ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext98/sring10.txt

(and then use File => Save As, making sure that you keep the .txt
extension) or the 98Kb zip file at

   ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/gutenberg/etext98/sring10.zip

For small books such as this, the text format is fine, but when you are
getting "War and Peace"
ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext01/wrnpc10.zip, the zipped
version makes more sense.

Of course, when you opt for zip, you must go through the extra step of
unzipping the file; if you don't have an application for that, try the
evaluation copy from http://www.winzip.com/ or http://www.pkware.com.

If you run into an access problem, note that there are many "mirror sites"
available from the main page, and you can always try another server on the
Gutenberg "network." Look for the "Select Another FTP site" strip near the
bottom of the main page, click on the down-arrow on the right to see what
File Transfer Protocol sites are available.

Studying Beethoven? For superb original material, in Friedrich Kerst's
"Beethoven, The Man And The Artist, As Revealed in His Own Words,"
Gutenberg is at your service:
ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext02/lvbma10.txt.  For
another source of original research material, check out Charles Ives'
"Essays Before a Sonata", insightful thoughts about Emerson, Hawthorne and
Thoreau, serving as a humongous set of program notes for his Second Piano
Sonata - at ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03/ivess10.txt.

Gutenberg also offers some MIDI files (Beethoven's Fifth, Haydn's 104th
symphonies among them), but I had trouble playing these files after
downloading them - you may have better luck.  No problem at all with Oscar
Wilde's "Symphony in Yellow," a poem in the "Charmides" collection, at
ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext97/crmds10.txt.  There are
music texts as well, some rather exotic, from "Cavalier Songs And Ballads
Of England from 1642 to 1684"
(ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext97/csboe10.txt) to the
original "Beggar's Opera"
(ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext00/bgopr10.txt.

Thirty years ago, Carnegie-Mellon professor Michael Hart digitized and put
on-line the Declaration of Independence, followed by the US Constitution,
and then created Project Gutenberg to realize an extraordinary plan - make
all literature available to all people.  It was tough going - as recently
as 1991, there were only 18 eText/eBook files available - but matters
speeded up considerably, producing 18,000 such files today in just one
index (The Internet Public Library), all free for the taking.

The project's aim is to give away one trillion e-text files by the end of
this year.  Sometime in December, on a date yet to be selected, Gutenberg
will establish a new kind of "book-burning" record by coordinating a
worldwide downloading of its files to create CDs for giveaway, each holding
40,000 titles.  The ultimate purpose of the project is to provide 18
million titles in a box of CDs, at the cost of about $1,000, and distribute
them all over creation - a singular effort to marry literature and
technology for the benefit of all in a volunteer, nonprofit venture.

Janos Gereben/SF
[log in to unmask]

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