Xref: utzoo comp.sys.next:504 rec.arts.books:4351
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!unisoft!hoptoad!tim
From: tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next,rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Hundreds of books on an optical disk
Message-ID: <5821@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: 3 Nov 88 05:52:06 GMT
References: <0XMtqn087E-0A14EYk@andrew.cmu.edu> <344@uceng.UC.EDU> <5772@hoptoad.uucp> <3447@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <5790@hoptoad.uucp> <1676@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU>
Reply-To: tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney)
Organization: Eclectic Software, San Francisco
Lines: 42

In article <5790@hoptoad.uucp> tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney) wrote:
>Even with public domain books, the costs of scanning and
>character-recognizing are pretty large.

In article <1676@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU> geb@cadre.dsl.pittsburgh.edu
(Gordon E. Banks) has been writing:
>Not really.  You can estimate it by the cost of getting books from
>University Microfilms.  They have to photocopy each page.  A normal
>sized book is around $50.  This covers retrieving the book from
>whatever library has it, and the labor of copying it.

So $50*671 = $33,500.  Not a trivial investment.  This is the cost to the
publisher of making the book, though it would be spread out among the
individual copies.  And that's still not factoring in the OCR running and
proofreading, not to mention pre-mastering and mastering and duplication.
And promotion and....

>OCR programs will
>soon be sophisticated enough that it won't add much to the cost
>of simply photocoping the book.

Disagree.  It'll always take proofreading, and for 671 books that's quite
a lot of skilled labor to pay for.

>Compared to conventional publication (typesetting) this cost is trivial.

Agree provisionally; per book it's relatively trivial; for hundreds of books
it far exceeds the production cost of a single typeset book.

>If all books worth reading in
>the public domain were done, it would be a wonderful thing.  I suspect
>people will start doing this as soon as the market is large enough.
>The real hang up is going to be with current books where royalties
>will have to be paid.

Completely agree!  I hope it happens, but as someone who did a minor
feasibility study on doing it himself, I have to say it seems a long
way off.  The barriers are formidable.
-- 
Tim Maroney, Consultant, Eclectic Software, sun!hoptoad!tim
"The time is gone, the song is over.
 Thought I'd something more to say." - Roger Waters, Time