Frequently Asked Questions

... and answers from The Editor

This page attempts to answer some of the more likely questions you would want to ask. But if you have a question not covered here, please use our Feedback form or send email to help.library@list.adelaide.edu.au

A. Using this site

How do I find out what books you have got?

On the left hand side of this page, you should see a menu of options. These include Alphabetical list of Authors, Chronological list of Authors, and Alphabetical list of Titles. And there are also lists of works organised by Theme (subject).

All of our works are linked to from the author pages. Each author has their own page, and all available works by an author will be found on the author's page, along with a short biography.

All of the works in the collection may also be found by searching the Library Catalogue.

Do I need special software?

No, all you need is a web browser — any browser will do.

Copyright Warning

Most of our web books are freely available to anyone, under the terms of a Creative Commons License. However, in some instances, the University is required to restrict access to members of the University of Adelaide. Access restrictions will be clearly indicated on the author page.

Under Australian copyright laws, copyright in literary works of authors, who died before 1955, has expired. These works are now within the \221public domain\222 in Australia and this is why the University is able to reproduce such works on this site. HOWEVER, works may remain copyrighted in other countries. If copyright in the work still subsists in the country from which you are accessing this website, it will be illegal for you to download the work. It is your responsibility to check the applicable copyright laws in your country.

Which edition is ——?

These web-books are intended to be new editions — Web editions — rather than facsimiles of previous editions. The key objectives are accessibility and readability. The implication of this is that we have made no attempt to retain pagination or other textual references which may have been in the source edition. Pagination is considered to be an artefact of the printed medium — a work is divided into pages simply because they are the units of publication in a paper format. With web editions, the unit of publication is the web page, which may be a complete chapter, section or even the entire work.

In many cases, the original edition from which the plain text version was produced is not known. Where it is known, this is usually stated on the table of contents page. (At the end.)

Sometimes, the plain text edition was created from multiple print editions. This may or may not matter, depending on your needs. For example, if you are studying Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, then it will probably be important to know whether you have the first or third edition. If you are reading it for pleasure then you probably don’t care.

I suggest that if you are looking for an authoritative edition of the work, then you should seek out a print copy in your nearest library. On the other hand, if you just want a good read, this web edition should be fine.

How do I cite a book from this site?

Citation styles vary, and the style you need depends on the demands of your publisher or teacher.

A good general guide to citation styles is : Hacker, Diana. Research and Documentation Online. Bedford/St. Martin's. http://www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/

In the absence of any specific requirements, I suggest the following citation style for these web books:

<Author>. <Title>. eBooks @ Adelaide. 2006. <url>

For example:

Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. eBooks @ Adelaide. 2006. http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/a/austen/jane/a93pr/

How do I cite a section? There are no page numbers!

That’s because page numbers are only relevant to a print book. Pagination is considered to be an artefact of the printed medium - a work is divided into pages simply because they are the units of publication in a paper format. With web editions, the unit of publication is the web page, which may be a complete chapter, section or even the entire work.

If you want to cite from one of our web books, it is perfectly legitimate to use just the URL.

Can I search the texts?

Yes! The full text of each web book may be searched using the Search link from the sidebar.

(This uses Google to search the texts. Please note that recently added texts may not yet have been indexed by Google.)

Can I — ?

Sure you can! All of the works are public domain, and you are free to do whatever you want with them. If you do re-use one of our web-books, I’d be grateful for an acknowledgment. And please let us know if you find the web-books useful: feedback is important in keeping this service running.

I found an error in the text!

This is not surprising, once you know how these texts are created: usually, someone will create a machine-readable plain text version from a print edition, either by scanning and OCR, or sometimes by simply typing it in. I have also heard of someone dictating a text using speech recognition software. Whatever the method, errors are bound to occur. (OCR typically has a 2% error rate, even for the best software, due to imperfections in the original. With a typical 200 word page, this equates to about 4 errors per page.)

Once a “raw” plain-text file has been created, it gets proof-read. If you’ve ever done proof-reading, you’ll know that it is a boring and thankless task. Anyway, proof-reading will find the majority of errors, but it is always possible that some will remain. Which is where you, the reader, comes in:

If you do find errors, either in the text or in formatting, please let us know and we’ll do our best to fix them.

I’m looking for —

If you are looking for a work not included here, then we don’t have it. But you might be able to find it elsewhere. Try the Directories page.

It’s tedious saving all these separate chapters. Is there a single-file version?

Generally, works are divided into multiple separate files, usually by chapter. But all of our web books now include a zip archive of the entire work, which you can download for reading off-line.

Works added since the beginning of 2003 include a single-file version. You'll find a link to it at the foot of the title page. Older works will be upgraded to include a single-file version as time permits.

B. About this site

What is the purpose of this site?

The purpose of this site is: to provide access to the “classic” works of civilisation; to promote reading of the same; and for the editor to have fun. There are many sites offering classic works in one form or another. Putting them into a format which readers might actually enjoy using is a challenge which I enjoy. If others benefit from it, so much the better.

The Electronic Text Collection began around 1998. I was aware of other e-text projects and had compiled a web page directory of these sites. Dissatisfied with the presentation on those sites, I wanted to explore how one might present a book using HTML in such a way that it was as readable and enjoyable as a printed book. Having proved the concept, I then began adding titles and refining the format (and refinement continues to this day). The first title publicly promoted was Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend, done in order to tie in with an ABC TV adaptation which was showing at the time.

More recently I have pursued the creation of web editions with renewed vigor, and we now have over 680 titles in the collection. Selection of titles is loosely based on what are described as “the Great Books”.

How does your presentation differ from other sites?

Some sites (actually, most) present their works in ways which I, personally, find annoying: they use coloured backgrounds, the pages are festooned with images, sidebars and other extraneous material, they use ugly fonts, too small fonts, etc. And they rarely make use of additional coding to make the texts more readable. Some sites don’t use HTML at all, and expect you to read PDF. That’s OK for printing, but I find PDF too blurry for extended reading on screen.

Many sites either present the whole work as a single file (making it too large for comfort), or they split the work into many small pieces, making it tedious to get the whole work. This matters if you are on a slow-ish modem connection.

The principle features of works in this collection are:

works are presented as HTML files, thereby making them accessible to anyone with a web browser;
works are formatted for ease of reading on screen, using style sheets — lines are justified, with extra spacing between lines (this doesn’t work on all browsers);
if selected from our Author pages, works will open in a separate window which has been sized to an optimal width for reading (just like a book);
the reader is not constrained: you may choose the font and type-size most comfortable for you;
the works are unencumbered by advertising or other extraneous material;
each work may be easily downloaded in its entirety for reading off-line (requires WinZIP or similar).

In addition, additional effort is put into the following to further enhance appearance and usability:

plain text (ASCII) quotes are converted to “curly” quotes;
only numeric entities are used, for maximum browser compatibility;
quotations and verse are identified (usually by indentation);
footnotes are generally placed adjacent to the text referring to them, within a box (in supporting browsers).

Where do the texts come from?

Most of the web-books are created from plain-text versions available from Project Gutenberg. Some have been created from other free public-domain sources. All have been created by volunteers. To find out how you might contribute your time, see the Project Gutenberg site. Or for a very easy and enjoyable way to contribute, visit the Distributed Proofreaders project.

Please note that neither I nor the University of Adelaide Library has any association with Project Gutenberg, although we do mirror their archive locally, and we are extremely grateful for their efforts.

The plain text versions have been converted into web books for this site, in order to maximise their accessibility and usability. No expense has been spared in the process.

How are these books produced?

Typically, I take a plain-text file from the Project Gutenberg collection. I then use several locally-written Perl scripts to convert this file into HTML, and then split the HTML version into multiple pages, usually by chapter. Finally, a “front page” with table of contents is created linking them all together.

As much of this process as possible is automated. However, a certain amount of hand editing is always required to ensure good formatting of the result. This varies depending on the complexity of the work and the state of the original plain text version.

Sometimes, the original plain text file is already well-structured and conversion can take as little as fifteen minutes. Sometimes, the original lacks obvious structure and this has to be identified manually. Sometimes, the original contains “faults” which require some serious manual editing to put right. Removing end-of-line hyphenation is especially painful. In a worst case, preparation can take many hours.

C. Other questions

I have an old book. Can you tell me what it is worth?

No. I am a web designer and programmer. What you need is an Antiquarian Book Dealer. Try the yellow pages.

Can you help with my essay/project/assignment?

No. I am a web designer and programmer. Furthermore, I probably haven’t even read the book. I just create ’em.