Personally Done Editing Books (for the foreseeable future.)

[davejonescue]

This hasnt been a hasty decision; but it is time. It is funny how Church can be a means of confirmation of the things you are struggling with.

 

[alexanderjames]

This sounds like a wise decision to me. I'm sure there are many who are thankful for what you've done in this capacity friend, and I pray for you all the best with your other endeavours in the Lord's service.

 

[Reformed Covenanter]

I would encourage you to carry on using this gift that the Lord has given you for the edification of the church.

 

[davejonescue]

I would encourage you to carry on using this gift that the Lord has given you for the edification of the church.

Here is the thing though. From the books included in the Project Puritan Corpus, there are approx. 2,300 books that are over 60 pages. Within that 2,300 count, one would have to negate those that have been done, and those whose authors are obscure and wont be in demand, and those titles that deal with time specific material. We have to remember; for most people, even among Pastors, there is only going to be about 10-20 Puritans they read. When I went to hunt down the 980, I really went to the recesses of searching; and honestly, I am sure there are more to be found, and more works in EEBO that were not included in TCP.

But the thing is, editing these are not a "gift" per say (though to do so is a gift by God.) It is just a willingness to sit still and comb through the text slowly and make adjustments when necessary. For instance, I am on a Puritan site on Facebook that has 70,000 members. If just a single person, picked a single text, the entire corpus could be done in a month or two; offered to the world at no cost. I think the same thing can be said for membership here, on this site. There is no reason that a single person needs to be chugging away at these titles trying to do them all when there are 200,000,000 professing Christians in America.

This is why I am content with what Project Puritas has done. We have preserved the transcribed Puritan Corpus, and we have also created an Error Sheet to let one know how each document is error'ed, if so. I remember on here asking numerous times for suggestions for Puritan and Non-Conformist names to research, to put in this corpus; and, there was hardly a response. So if TCP goes offline, and some were omitted, we tried our best. Some of that is because I have a feeling that some believe this literature is basically an enterprise, a means of gain, a way to keep food on their table. And as such the response was akin to corporations being privy of their trade secrets. I never have, nor ever will buy into that. If people are content on being bound to the scruples of publishers, and what they decide to monetize, so be it. No concern nor request for partnership was expressed by others in making these texts free to the world; cept that of the two brothers of Project Puritas; and, in that regard, we have basically done, what we are going to do. Like one said, "we cant do it all."

The Corpus, and the Error Sheet are there for anybody to utilize to do so. Puritan Search already is like an entire Puritan Commentary.

This is not speaking on the vast array of Puritan titles that are already freely available. Since of course, all Puritan titles are in the public domain where accessible. If it were a matter of necessity, sure, I would be all on it. But again, for the most part, its just adding another book to the million book pile.

With this being said, imagine if just 10, or 20, or 30 people were interested in seeing this literature proliferated free of charge? Each churning out a book once a week. At 30 people, that is 1560 books per year. At two weeks, that is 780. But can even 30 people, in all the people that purport to love Puritans be found who would give such effort? Can 20? Can 10? That is while I do have a slight disdain for those who look at Puritan literature as simply a market; at the same time, I do not blame them one bit, since, in fact, so very few are willing to work towards freeing them into public circulation. And as such, a worker is worth their wages; especially if so few are willing to work.

The Corpus is preserved, the Errors are isolated; and all it takes to correct is an RSA membership, Word or Libre, and a willingness. For now I wash my hands of it. I can spend my life trying to do "just one more book," and miss out on all the works that have already been done. One day, if the popularity of Puritan literature keeps rising; there will be groups who will take what we have done and do what we were desiring to do. "All the Puritans, free for All." It is inevitable. There are not that many works. But it is something that should be left up to a team. Some things a single person can do, some things a team can do. I would have never been able to do in 10 years, by myself, what Project Puritas did in 6 months with 3 people.

No, it is time for me to enjoy the Puritans myself now, being able to rest my head knowing I, in my respect for them, did put in a humble mite into the offering of their global proliferation. I am just excited to see God raise up others just as zealous to do so, and pray they far exceed anything I could ever have hoped of achieving, or drempt of doing.

But besides all of this, my local congregation has a heart for community evangelism; and so do I. Sermon after sermon our Pastor speaks to people being willing to engage our community with the Gospel, and I go back home to edit books, hidden away in my room. If I need to be doing anything, it is preparing to be an effective witness to my community, and thus aligning myself with the desires of my local church prerogative.

These are just my opinions, and dont reflect the others of Project Puritas.

 

[Logan]

I would encourage you to carry on using this gift that the Lord has given you for the edification of the church.

Daniel,
When I cleaned up all the EEBO documents I also converted the output to its original html, MS Word, PDF, and epub formats. So it's already pretty much all available (see link below). Dave has mostly been doing a bit of touching up (but there are still going to be plenty of typos).

However, none of these are truly ready for publishing, in my opinion. To publish them properly one should compare with the originals and ensure that EEBO captured everything, and then format and generate a usable table of contents etc. and fix the typos. But if you just want to read and don't mind overlooking the remaining typos, it's all available here:

Project Puritas

 

[davejonescue]

Daniel,
When I cleaned up all the EEBO documents I also converted the output to its original html, MS Word, PDF, and epub formats. So it's already pretty much all available (see link below). Dave has mostly been doing a bit of touching up (but there are still going to be plenty of typos).

However, none of these are truly ready for publishing, in my opinion. To publish them properly one should compare with the originals and ensure that EEBO captured everything, and then format and generate a usable table of contents etc. and fix the typos. But if you just want to read and don't mind overlooking the remaining typos, it's all available here:

Project Puritas

For Monergism, I was going over the works and comparing them with the originals, line by line. That is why I say to edit them properly one needs an EEBO subscription; (I get mine through RSA, and many texts will have multiple editions that dont have the same errors as the ones used for TCP); or the physical original work. The only thing omitted in the Monergism editions was Greek & Hebrew, since I am not proficient in those, and much of the facsimile script makes copying very difficult unless you know the languages. This is why the Error Sheet was created. As one can pinpoint what texts have the fewest errors, and what texts have the most. I was able to complete 24 texts in two months not because I wasnt formatting them properly, but because I was dealing mostly with the texts with the fewest errors. Word highlights most spelling mistakes the Project Puritas conversion did not touch. The works I did for Monergism are not really typo inclusive; even most of the l,s,t,f, swicharoo gets noticed, where it occurs, because it creates intelligible words. I was spending on average 5 hours a day, and 8 hours on days off on these texts. Which comes out to about 220-230 hours I spent on them.

 

[Logan]

For Monergism, I was going over the works and comparing them with the originals, line by line. That is why I say to edit them properly one needs an EEBO subscription; I get mine through RSA, and many texts will have multiple editions that dont have the same errors as the ones used for TCP; or the physical original work. The only thing omitted in the Monergism editions were Greek & Hebrew, since I am not proficient in those, and much of the facsimile script makes copying very difficult unless you know the languages. This is why the Error Sheet was created. As one can pinpoint what texts have the fewest errors, and what text have the most. I was able to complete 24 texts in two months not because I wasnt formatting them properly, but because I was dealing mostly with the texts with the fewest errors. Word highlights most spelling mistakes the Project Puritas conversion did not touch. The works I did for Monergism are not really typo inclusive; even most of the l,s,t,f, swicharoo gets noticed, where it occurs, because it creates intelligible words. I was spending on average 5 hours a day, and 8 hours on days off on these texts. Which comes out to about 220-230 hours I spent on them.

Ah! That's good to know, thanks!

 

[Deleted member 13126]

But besides all of this, my local congregation has a heart for community evangelism; and so do I. Sermon after sermon our Pastor speaks to people being willing to engage our community with the Gospel, and I go back home to edit books, hidden away in my room. If I need to be doing anything, it is preparing to be an effective witness to my community, and thus aligning myself with the desires of my local church prerogative.