Distributed Proofreaders Canada
| Available in | English, French |
|---|---|
| URL | www www |
| Commercial | No |
| Registration | Required |
| Launched | December 1, 2007 |
| Current status | Active |
Content license | Public Domain |
| Written in | PHP[1] |
Distributed Proofreaders Canada (DP Canada) is an organization that converts books into digital format and releases them as Public domain books in formats readable by electronic devices. It maintains its own archive website for the material released. It was launched in December 2007 and as of 2016 has published about 2,500 books. While its focus is on Canadian publications and preserving Canadiana, it also includes books from other countries as well. Modelled after Distributed Proofreaders, DP Canada publishes books to its own eBook archive Faded Page and also works with Project Gutenberg Canada to publish some of the texts on its website for preservation and electronic dissemination.
History
Distributed Proofreaders Canada was launched in December 2007 by David Jones and Michael Shepard. Although it was established by members of the original Distributed Proofreaders site, it is a separate entity.[2] To date, it is a volunteer based non-profit organization. All the administrative and management costs are borne by its members. The software used by DP Canada was originally downloaded from SourceForge but has been substantially modified since then.
In addition to preserving Canadiana, DP Canada is notable because it is one of the first major efforts to take advantage of Canada's copyright laws which allows more works to be preserved. Unlike copyright law in other countries, Canada has a "life plus 50" copyright term. Works by authors who died more than fifty years ago may be made publicly available in Canada.[3] Other countries have differing copyright laws. Although files available through DP Canada are publicly available in other countries, the onus is on the reader to ensure that they only download material that is not in copyright in their country of residence.
Notable Canadian authors whose books have been published include Stephen Leacock, L. M. Montgomery, E. T. Seton and Mazo de la Roche. Authors whose works have been released in Canada but not other parts of the world include A. A. Milne, C. S. Lewis, Winston Churchill, E. E. Smith and Amy Carmichael.
Proofreading
Eligible books are chosen by members for publication based on personal interest and access.[4] Books are scanned electronically and each page is uploaded to the proofreading website. A project is created for the book and is made available to the proofreading members. Each book is proofread in three stages called 'P1', 'P2' and 'P3'. During the first stage, errors in scanning and other minor errors are corrected. Once all pages in the book have been edited the book pages are promoted to the next stage, P2. The proofreading is repeated and again in stage P3 to ensure no errors make it to the final publication.[5]
Once stage P3 is finished the book moves to a set of two formatting stages called 'F1', and 'F2'. In these stages the book text is changed into a format that allows it to be presented to the reader in a style that resembles the original book as closely as possible. For example, text originally appearing in Italic type is placed within formatting tags <i>this text is in italics</i>. When formatted the text appears correctly as this text is in italics.[6]
When the formatting stages are complete, a post-processing stage brings all the files together to publish the books in five electronic formats. These include ePub, mobi, HTML, PDF and plain text. The HTML version is also made available as a Zip file.
Publication
The books that are published by DP Canada in the Public domain are made available through the Faded Page website. Some of the publications released are also posted to the Project Gutenberg Canada (PG Canada) website. PG Canada is another book archive which does not perform proofreading and formatting tasks.
See also
References
- ^ "Distributed Proofreaders download". SourceForge.net. Retrieved 2016-09-15.
- ^ Lebert, Marie (November 5, 2010). "Distributed Proofreaders just celebrated its 10th anniversary". Teleread.
- ^ Taylor, Donald (July 27, 2015). "How long does copyright last?". Simon Fraser University.
- ^ Knox, Jack (April 28, 2016). "Books mean the world to volunteers". Times - Colonist. Victoria, B.C. p. A3.
- ^ "Proofreading Guidelines". Distributed Proofreaders Canada. September 2012.
- ^ "Formatting Guidelines". Distributed Proofreaders Canada. May 2012.