OBI FAQ

                   The Online Book Initiative's
      Most Frequently Asked Questions (which deserve an answer)


Q. Could you send me a catalog of what you currently have available
from The OnLine Book Initiative (TM)?

A. We've never really developed a catalog. There's an ls-lR file which
is just the output of listing all the directories daily, it's stored
in the top level (obi.std.com:obi/ls-lR.Z) and available like
everything else via ftp. However, if you're volunteering to develop a
catalog we'll tell the *next* person who asks for one...!

Q. What sort of things do you expect to put into The OnLine Book
Repository (TM)?

We wish to concentrate on freely redistributable textual material.

Typically this excludes computer software (except as directly relates
to the goals of the project) only because so many others do that
already.

There are other things we probably won't be terribly interested in,
either because the data volume is too great when compared with the
utility (bitmap images) or because others are doing a good job
already, why duplicate their efforts?

Q. What do you mean by ``freely redistributable''?

A. We mean that if you get a copy of something we have you can give it
to someone else and don't need anyone's permission to do so. This sort
of material falls into two classes.

	Materials in the Public Domain: You can do anything
	you like with these, even sell them. We will add no
	new restrictions to such material.

	Materials copyrighted but entered into the repository:
	You will have to honor the copyright.

For example, a copyright holder might make something available through
us only so long as it is not re-sold for money other than reasonable
copying costs. If it's as simple as that then it's fine by us.

It just doesn't make sense to me that you can put significant
materials on-line and give people access to them with their computers
and then have to worry about whether or not they are copying them.

Q. Would you refuse to touch copyrighted materials? Is this a religion?

A. No, no. We won't include any restricted materials in the Open Book
Repository simply so we don't have any confusion. If other useful
materials become available which are either marginal or restricted but
still useful for some reason we will put them elsewhere.

We are not particularly trying to make a statement although we do have
certain philosophies about all this which are best discussed
elsewhere.

Q. Where do you expect these materials to come from? Are there really
enough of them to be worthwhile?

A. Nothing printed by the US Government can be copyrighted (unless it
had prior copyright and the material was transferred to the government
but not the copyright, that's a detail that doesn't come up often.)

Many books and other materials are out of copyright and are useful.

Many useful textual materials are published but are not intended to be
sold. For example, computer and other vendors often publish
third-party catalogs or other materials they give away for free.
Activist and social organizations often create materials they would
like to have freely distributed. Others create lists and other
material for their own business which they don't intend to sell and
might be willing to share.

There are many small run journals and magazines who should be willing
to put their back issues online.

     DON'T FRET ABOUT WHAT CAN'T BE DONE -- DO WHAT CAN BE DONE!

Q. Have you heard of SGML? How do you intend to represent all this
text? What about international materials in various languages?

A. Yes we have heard of SGML and intend to use it.

We are also interested in the Text Encoding Initiative which is
implementing extended text encoding definitions within the SGML
framework.  SGML and associated ISO standards are intended to provide
standardized encoding methods for texts of any language.  Some of the
standards could be improved or extended further and we will go along
with them and help where we can.

Q. Why SGML? Why not just use TeX or Troff or...?

This is adequately answered in the SGML standard, ISO8879, a document
we'd like to make available online quickly if possible. In a sentence,
SGML describes the functional parts of a document and makes display
specifications a separate task, it was designed to support both
display and information retrieval simultaneously. Most other systems
concentrate too much on one (typically typesetting) to the detriment
of the other (typically document retrieval.)

Q. How about cataloguing?

A. This is an open question. I tend towards LCSH (Library Of Congress
standards) and MARC (also Library of Congress, a record format for
online catalogues with extended information like title, author,
subject, ISBN etc.) at least. Even if just because it allows the use
of imported materials and software immediately.

Q. What about Hypertext?

A. Yes, but my feeling is that hypermedia systems can be overlaid on
top of the collection independent of the cataloguing and
representation of the collection. If done properly the materials would
be useful to many such systems simultaneously. This is a topic that
merits much more discussion.

Q. What about Multimedia?

A. Yes, very few documents contain only text.

At the very least pictures and graphics must be kept in the documents.
I would love to go beyond this, books about Mozart which can play
Mozart for you, books about animal behavior with animations, chemistry
texts with 3-D pictures you can rotate, etc.

Q. Are you aware of [ACL/DCI, TEI, Project Gutenberg, The National
Clearinghouse for Machine Readable Texts, The Oxford Text Archive]?

A. Yes.

Q. Don't you think you're doing the same thing as they are?

A. No. Well, that's not the point.

I have been in contact with people involved in some of those projects
and others. They have all been very supportive and, as we do, want to
cooperate.

This kind of endeavor is enormous, no individual is going to make a
dent in it very fast. In some cases the goals of the organizations are
quite different even if they seem similar (putting text online) at
first glance.

Q. How will these materials be made available when they do get
on-line?

Materials stored here will be made available on various magnetic and
other computer media. They will also be made available for direct
download. We hope to have internet connectivity soon, hopefully by the
time we have materials for you to access.

We also, and this may be the most important service, wish to make
available direct access to the collections. Just as photocopying an
entire library for personal use is often impractical, we feel that our
goals will cause the collection to grow to a point that you probably
won't want to keep a private copy of everything (although you will be
free to do so!)

Q. Do you plan to charge for this?

Services, such as making magnetic tapes, will be charged for at a
reasonable copying charge, similar to what other organizations who
give away free software charge. Similar for on-line access,
downloading etc.

Anyone will be free to give away our stuff for no charge but
collection, cataloguing, formatting, entering, storage and collation
will cost us money.  Unless someone steps forward to pay for all this
we will not be able to provide services and media for free.

If you ever need something we have and sincerely can't pay for it
don't hesitate to give us a call. We are sincerely committed to the
distribution of online textual information.

In particular, several people who are blind have sent me mail
indicating how much online materials mean to them. Let's all make sure
their access to online documents is even easier in the future!

Q. Are you going to work with scanners?

A. Yes!

Q. Are you looking for already on-line materials?

A. Yes!

Q. Do you need help? I can scan (type) some stuff in.

A. Yes! But let's coordinate to avoid duplication.

Q. I have some things here...

A. Yes! Make sure they are redistributable and/or you know their
sources. Describe it to us first to avoid duplication.

Q. I wrote a book/short-story/article no one ever published, are you
interested? I publish an on-line magazine/journal, would you like all
the back issues?

A. Yes! Tell us what it is about first, don't just send it.

Q. You sometimes use "I" and sometimes "we", why?

A. Sometimes I am speaking for myself, sometimes I am quite sure I am
speaking for others involved in the project.

Q. What is desperately needed, anything in particular?

A. Yes! Dictionaries of English and other languages. Also, thesauruses
(theasuri?) and similar fundamental language reference works.

Q. If The OBI becomes a networked service will it be called The OBI-WAN?

A. Sure.

Q. Wasn't this too long?

A. Yes, sorry, but I suspect we needed some basic questions answered.

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