On Line Books

[Currie]

I haven’t read ‘The Social Life of Scotland in the Eighteenth Century’, just browsed the chapters after Lesley drew the online version to my attention. It looks to be the ideal book on such a subject. I couldn’t find anything else anywhere near as comprehensive online. There are several books which specialise in particular subjects a couple being

‘Folk Lore, or Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within this Century’.
James Napier 1879
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/15792 (Download HTML version)

‘Notes on a Visit Made to Some of the Prisons in Scotland and the North of England’
Joseph John Gurney 1819
http://www.google.com/books?id=rEciB1Nt ... d&as_brr=1 Click on ‘View plain text’ for a reasonable raw OCR or download as PDF. Interesting reading on the horrors of prison life in that era.

‘The Social Life of Scotland in the Eighteenth Century’ has had many reprints and can be obtained quite cheaply. AbeBooks has over 40 copies listed ranging from 4 pounds to over 50 depending on age, condition, and what the dealer feels they can get away with. Some second hand book prices can be a trap for the unwary and it is probably wise to research things properly and not be too impatient.

I’m glad you mentioned electricscotland, Lesley, as that’s another great source of eBooks. What I don’t like about electricscotland is the incredible clutter and the fact that can’t tell whether you’re looking at a topic or an advert. But the fact is that without the eBook version many of those who may wish to read the book may never get to see it. The main book list is here http://www.electricscotland.com/history/books.htm

The book is presented in graphical format, and that makes it a bit clumsy to read, partly due to download times etc. It hasn’t been OCR’d because of the many footnotes and probably the difficulties that would arise from recognition of the smaller footnote font etc. and the large amount of manual formatting required. Printing these page images would, as Sheila said, be very expensive, mainly because of the yellowish colour of the page.

Because the image quality appears to be quite good it is possible to overcome this problem by converting the images to 1 bit B&W by a batch conversion, if you’re into that sort of thing, thereby giving black print on white pages, but you still may not be happy with the result as you would have no control over formatting etc. It would be time consuming and possibly not worthwhile in the case of a relatively inexpensive book. Conversion into text form, by OCR and manual editing, and thereby making it searchable, is really the ideal.

In the case of the Google prison book referred to above, where both image and OCR text is supplied it is quite easy to make your own eBook by pasting the OCR text into a word processor and using the images to correct the OCR shortcomings.

We probably should have a Sticky listing all the known sources of online books with a Scottish theme. If some one recommends a book, they, or someone else, could check if it is online, and indicate if that is the case, just as Lesley has done..

I’m trying to stress online books because you may find that the book you’re planning to travel to access, or the expensive book that you plan to purchase solely for research (and which may have no other appeal) has been made available on line, and is only as far away as your computer.

One problem with so-called eBooks is that the reading experience is nothing like relaxing with a real book and possibly will never be as good as that. EBooks are great in that even rare volumes are becoming available for anybody, anywhere, to read, and at no cost. The numbers of these are increasing as we head down the track to a paperless world.

The main problem with eBooks, as I see it, is the delivery system, the hardware. I like to read real books in a position inclined towards the horizontal, i.e. with me, not the book, lying down. You possibly can do the same with an eBook if you have a Notebook Computer but I imagine you would be none too comfortable with a 17” CRT Monitor balanced on your chest.

No doubt in the future some will develop hardware more suitable for the reading of eBooks and which gives something much closer to a real book experience. Something like an inexpensive, compact, page sized, hand held, screen where you can change pages that look like real pages, just like turning pages of a real book and on which hundreds of books can be stored. Maybe there is something out there already, if there isn’t then there’s sure to be someone, somewhere, working on it.

Or, if the book was in text form and you thought it worth the expense of the ink, you could print all or part of the book on your printer, preferably using both sides of the page, and have it bound cheaply with one of those spiral or plastic things.

And, Marilyn, I love a bit of fantasy.

I suppose everyone has been exposed to Doctor Who on TV over more years than they care to remember. Doctor Who, the Time Lord, gets into his Tardis with his trusty sidekick and heads off to the beginning of time or to some other momentous event where he battles the Daleks or whatever other monsters they could rent costumes for.

What a complete waste of a Time Machine.

I would be off to 1862 and follow a GG Grandfather around to find out where he disappeared to after he reported the death of his wife. Or off to find out why a GG Grandmothers name appeared as “Unknown” on all of her kids Death Certificates, even though they lived with her as adults, and what became of her. Did she do something horribly wrong?

What a complete waste of a Time Machine, Doctor Who!

Of course you would have to be very, very, careful if you went back in time. The slightest slip-up and you could end up in Bedlam or a similar institution for the rest of your life or maybe the rest of time.

I could be wrong, but I don’t recall Doctor Who or his sidekick ever expressing any interest in Family History or for that matter ever being committed to an Asylum.

I guess it takes all types to fill a Galaxy.

Sorry about the length of this post and I hope it is of some use to somebody.
Alan

[marilyn morning]

Currie wrote

And, Marilyn, I love a bit of fantasy.

I suppose everyone has been exposed to Doctor Who on TV over more years than they care to remember. Doctor Who, the Time Lord, gets into his Tardis with his trusty sidekick and heads off to the beginning of time or to some other momentous event where he battles the Daleks or whatever other monsters they could rent costumes for.