Things of Interest

I was planning on posting some of these links yesterday but since Blogger didn't seem to like me and American Idol was on. Yes, I watch American Idol. Can't help it. Something about it is so mesmerizing. Plus I like to watch the auditions at the beginning of the season and laugh at the people with attitudes who think they can sing. That alone is worth the price of admission.

• Google is getting grief over their Google Print service. A group of academic publishers are complaining that Google is violating copyright. It isn't clear what they want from Google. Do they want to make sure Google only scans public domain texts? Are they trying to derail the whole thing? Personally, I think Google Print is a fantastic idea. Google does need to make sure they aren't violating copyrights, but beyond that, scan Google! Scan!
• Everybody needs a little Gertrude Stein. I must admit, you have to be in just the right mood and even then sometimes I just can't connect. But when the stars are aligned Gertie is great! And you have to give her credit for writing a book like The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas and for having the ovaries to be able to put Hemingway and Picasso in their places.
• The Victorian Women Writers Project. Their goal is to "produce highly accurate transcriptions of works by British women writers of the 19th century, encoded using the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML). The works, selected with the assistance of the Advisory Board, will include anthologies, novels, political pamphlets, religious tracts, children's books, and volumes of poetry and verse drama. Considerable attention will be given to the accuracy and completeness of the texts, and to accurate bibliographical descriptions of them." What that means is you can read things like Catherine Booth's Female Ministry, Or, Woman's Right to Preach the Gospel (1859), Olive Schreiner's Story of an African Farm volumes one and two (1883), and Daphne, or Marriage a la Mode (1909) by Mrs. Humphry Ward. You can also help proofread and encode texts.
• Finally, for Sandra at Bookworld who wants to read Joyce and for those like myself who have a touch of Joyce phobia, a searchable Ulysses. The book is online at The Literature Network which has quite a few searchable books and short stories.