Anand Gholap
Contact-
Anand Gholap
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Objectives of Digitizing Theosophical writing
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Writing to be digitized
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About Copyright Act
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Procedure of Digitization
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Contact if you are already having writing in digital form or if you are
digitizing some books or for more information
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Helping the project by
making donations
- To enable greater cooperation
and coordination do join Theosophical group at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LeadbeaterAndBesant/
Objectives of Digitizing
Theosophical Writing
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There is much Theosophical
literature written by great occultists:
C. W. Leadbeater, Annie Besant, C.
Jinarajadasa, Geoffrey Hodson, Clara Codd, I. K. Taimni, G. S. Arundale and
N. Sri Ram. To write literature of that quality and
usefulness, very high occult development and Masters' guidance is required.
As we know they had written it taking great pains in most adverse conditions
just to benefit people. The writing and speeches were printed in around
thousand books and articles, magazines like The Theosophist, Theosophical
Review, Adyar Pamphlets, Herald of the Star, Lucifer etc.
Most of those prints are now more than 70 years old and are likely to perish
soon. Hard copies of that will not be available for reference and study, so
it is urgent and important that we should save that material in some
electronic form, preferable on compact discs (CDs), which could be made
available to generations to come, for thousands of years.
Copies of CDs can be given to
Theosophical Lodges and students of Theosophy for reference. This way that
precious literature can be saved before being totally lost and members will
benefit enormously.
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To promote second objective of
the Theosophical Society which is to encourage the study of Comparative
Religion, Philosophy and Science- by making available all the literature to
students of Theosophy conveniently, at very low cost.
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To reduce energy, time and cost
of accessing books, incurred by officers of Lodges and students of
Theosophy. Large number of students of Theosophy stay far away from
Theosophical library. CDs will save energy, time and money spent on frequent
traveling to library for exchanging books.
WRITING TO BE DIGITIZED
All books, magazines, pamphlets published by The Theosophical Society since it's
foundation in 1875 till 2002.
All books of imminent authors like Annie Besant , C. W. Leadbeater, T. Subba
Rao, G. S. Arundale, C. Jinarajadasa, H. S. Olcott, I. K. Taimni, Geoffrey
Hodson, N. Sri Ram etc.
Magazines The Theosophist, Lucifer, Theosophical Review, Herald of the Star, The
Theosophical Messenger
Adyar Pamphlets
*Imminent authors like I.K. Taimni, Geoffrey Hodson, Clara Codd, C.
Jinarajadasa, G. S. Arundale, N. Sri Ram etc. published lot of writing. They
were the editors of 'The Theosophist' and quality of everything that was printed
by the Theosophical Publishing House was carefully controlled by them. So when
one gets something printed by TPH it had direct or indirect approval of these
great occultists.
Printing in last five years or so was done on computer, so that need not be
again digitized. Almost all books, meant for sale, as given in Catalogue of TPH,
contains books which are already in digital form. But printing done before that
needs to be digitized.
ABOUT COPYRIGHT ACT
As per copyright act, when 60 (sixty) years after death of the author are over,
his writing and speeches become free from copyright. Then any person or
publisher is allowed to publish work of the author in any form; paper,
electronic etc.
As sixty years are over after physical death of H. S. Olcott,
A. P. Sinnett, Annie Besant, C. W. Leadbeater and most of their contemporaries,
their all writing and speeches have become free from copyright and anybody can
publish it again in any form; paper, digital etc.
Original scanned graphic images (photos) of books to be
preserved on CDs
as they are very useful to know in future how the original book looked like,
where the paragraphs were made, numbering of pages and verify that the text in
circulation is exactly as per the original book. Over the period of time, words
of original author get changed by mistake of people causing much loss to mankind
as has happened with most of the ancient writing.
These photos will be kept at important and safe places like
different national headquarters. Officers will be able to see on computer these
photos of books and check the text whenever required.
*
On CDs also, page numbers as appeared in original book should be
maintained as references need to be given always by lecturers, writers and
students.
* For distribution among
people, HTML format is better, as HTML files have smaller size and every
computer has web browser to read HTML files. Just as this whole report is
one web page (in HTML format), whole book can be easily given as one web page
even if paper-book may have 900 pages.
PROCEDURE OF DIGITIZING
(In short, person has to scan a good photocopy of a book,
software automatically recognizes text in the scanned image and converts it into
text file. It saves lot of energy and time and makes digitizing extremely easy)
In detail procedure of automatic digitizing of books and convert text into
electronic form, using Optical Character Recognition Software
(without having to type)
Most of the scanners come with some free Optical Character Recognition
software, e.g. FineReader from www.abbyy.com , OmniPage etc. These are sufficient to scan and
convert books into digital text files.
Most accurate Optical Character Recognition Software (OCR) is ABBYY FineReader
Pro. It's trial version can be downloaded for free from website
www.abbyy.com
Make following settings for FineReader Pro
After clicking on
Tools- Options
Check the boxes at options given below and uncheck boxes at other options.
Click on General
tab
Show image during recognition
Show tips during recognition
Open the last batch at startup
Show Welcome dialog at startup
View
tab
Show zoom window scroll bars
Show scaled black and white image as gray
Highlight uncertain characters
Scan/Open Image tab
Use FineReader interface
Split dual pages (If photocopy placed on scanner contains two consecutive pages
of book)
Detect image orientation (during recognition)
Open image during scanning
Use FineReader interface
Click on SELECT SCANNER to select the scanner.
Click on SCANNER SETTINGS and make following settings
Image Orientation- Portrait
Brightness- Automatic
Picture scanning mode- Black & White pictures.
Resolution- 300 DPI
Stop between pages
If scanner has Automatic Document Feeder ( ADF) then check
Use Automatic Document Feeder
Recognition
tab
Autodetect layout Clear background noise
Autodetect
Do not use user patterns
Check Spelling tab
Stop at words with uncertain characters
Stop at words not found in dictionary
Ignore words with digits and other nonalphabetic characters
Error display level Standard
Formatting
tab
Remove all formatting
Keep pictures
Click on Format Settings- Click on
HTML tab
Code Page- Automatic
Code page type- Windows
Retain text color
Format Simple
Reduce picture resolution to 72
JPEG quality- 50
Place the book on scanner ( e.g. scanners from
www.hp.com
)
Click on File- New Batch
(Enter name of the book in short)
Click on Process Scan & Read Multiple Images.
Place photocopies one by one as scanner scans.
Press
Process Read All Pages
Software will recognize text in scanned images automatically and show in window.
Click
Check Spelling button and correct spelling if any mistakes in recognition
are highlighted by the software. Click on Send Selected Pages To- Microsoft
Word.
A whole book can be saved as one web page (HTML format) in Microsoft word by
command FILE SAVE AS (save as type) WEB PAGE.
Click on thumbnail image of one page in left side column. Click
Edit- Select
All . Click File- Save Image
As -- TIFF, Black and
White,Group4 (*.tif), [Check- Save as multiple image file]
This will save all scanned images of a book in one file which can be viewed in
any image viewing program e.g. Imaging program with Windows 98
Start
Programs- Accessories -Imaging
Spelling Checking may be done after scanning of whole writing is over. To open
previously scanned images for OCRing give commands- FILE OPEN IMAGE- select
file and click on OPEN.
Saving scanned images will be extremely useful for proof reading or whenever it
is required to check how original book looked like.
Some scanners have facility to attach ADF. Scanning can be done easily and
automatically with Automatic Document Feeder (ADF). In this case ADF feeds all
pages one by one to scanner automatically.
Scanners
with ADF are available at http://www.hp.com
Multi
Function Devices (MFDs) also have Automatic Document Feeding facility.
Original
scanned graphic images (photos) of books to be preserved on CDs as they are very
useful to know in future how the original book looked like, where the paragraphs
were made, numbering of pages and verify that the text in circulation is exactly
as per the original book. Over the period of time, words of original author get
changed by mistake of people causing much loss for mankind as has happened with
most of the ancient writing in which there is no way of knowing what reached us
is exactly what writer wrote or not.
These photos will be kept at important and safe places in different
countries. Officers will be able to see on computer these photos of books and
check the text whenever required.
*
On CDs also, page numbers as appeared
in original book should be maintained as references need to be given always by
lecturers, writers and students.
* For distribution among
people, HTML format is better, as HTML files have smaller size and every
computer has web browser to read HTML files. Just as this whole report is
one web page (in HTML format), whole book can be easily given as one web page
even if paper-book may have 900 pages.
One CD can contain many thousand books.
Contact
Those who are already having
Theosophical writing in digital form or digitizing some works, are requested to
communicate it at e-mail-
AnandGholap@gmail.com
If any more information is required
it may be asked at the same e-mail address.
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