Digitizing Books in Gregg Shorthand

I tried to post all of the links and details here, but this site won’t let me post everything.  Here is a Facebook page link to work that I did to get a few Gregg Shorthand books digitized from library collections.  So far, I paid to digitize:
–The Sign of the Four (1919?  The only version created, which matches the 1912 Gregg Manual)
–The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (first version from 1912, matching the 1902 Gregg Manual)
–The Art of Making A Speech (written in Shorthand from the 1920’s)
–The 1898 Gregg Shorthand manual

I have already received the PDF downloads.  They are decent quality though mostly scanned in black and white.  The resolution could be higher, but they are fairly well scanned.

After Kirtas books updates their web pages, you can order these as PDF files for 1.95.  I don’t make anything off of that.  I just wanted to get those digitized because they were not available as PDF downloads on the Library World Catalog web pages.

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=14237&post=68706&uid=2221533661#!/topic.php?uid=2221533661&topic=14237

(by Paul for group greggshorthand)


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8 comments Add yours
  1. If you look at the web pages for the books that are already digitized through my payment to Kirtas, you will see no button to order the PDF download for 1.95. It says that you can pay to have the books digitized. I can assure you that they were already digitized, as I have the PDF downloads. I was told that kirtas only updates those web pages once a week.

  2. Paying for digitizing is one thing. However, charging for downloading once it's digitized seems like a scam to me. It's the same principle as microfilming. I once paid a library to have some materials microfilmed (because I could not use the materials otherwise). Once microfilmed, it was available for everyone.

    I scan stuff here all the time, and I don't charge a single penny for access and download. Maybe I should.

  3. Yeah, I took this site to be more of an enthusiast site, and not really for business purposes. I wouldn't pay to download a pdf. It does sound strange that that site is trying to equate a pay-for-download with a piece of copyrighted music for download, which most of these old scanned items are not. They are out of print and mostly out of copyright.

  4. I just wanted the materials. There was no other source to get them. I paid to have it digitized. They did come through with some good scans. I'm not personally making anything off that site if someone pays 1.95 to get those documents that I already paid to have scanned. It doesn't seem like a scam to me. I got the materials that I wanted. The New York Public library and other big libraries are doing the scans. They probably cannot afford to scan the materials unless someone pays for them.

  5. I didn't know this was a paid site. Thanks for footing the bill. I don't think that other site is a scam by any means, I'm all for the free market as well. If there were modern novels written in shorthand for sale on amazon, I would be buying them! Maybe in a few years there will be a backlash to our information overload society and people will start publishing shorthand works. I know I would buy them. I think it will be fun to challenge myself to at least transcribe something into shorthand once my writing skills get a little smoother. Right now my notes remind me of when I was in kindergarten learning how to print, and the size of the lowercase letters were bigger than the caps, etc. It's pretty fun to relearn how to write.

  6. I agree with you. Paying for something to be scanned is great (and I really appreciate it!) I've done this before many times, and in fact, I support libraries charging for scans. In my opinion, all these books should be digitized. I understand you're not making any money out of it, but paying a third party for downloads is another matter altogether. That's where my issue lies. If Kirtasbooks is the intermediary between the library and the customer to get the scan done, they should add a transaction fee at the beginning if anything. The library in turn should take the PDF and submit it to Google books or have it on their servers.

    I see that Kirtasbooks charges for binding and other stuff, and that's reasonable. (There's the "Invest in Knowledge" option, which allows you to get a 5% return on the sale of the book, which I believe if a sale is a download, say $1.95, you would get about 10 cents on subsequent downloads. Maybe I should look into that …)

    I'm not against people making money (quite the contrary!), and I realize people should run their businesses as they see fit, but there are limits. Like I said, no one pays me to scan anything, and I still do it. In fact, this website is not free as it runs under Multiply Premium, but for the nominal yearly charge, I'm willing to absorb the costs. That's why you don't see any ads here.

  7. There is an option where I could have paid more to get the book digitized. Then I would have made a small percentage every time someone bought a download or hard copy of that book. However, I don't feel right about making money from something like this. So I just paid less to have the book digitized without my making a cent off of this. I fully realize Kirtas is a business and they have to earn money somehow. I don't think 1.95 is any big deal to get a copy of the 1898 Gregg Shorthand manual or Sign of the Four. What I was paying for was being linked up with a library that has a book I really wanted digitized. Then I paid to have some student digitize the book. Let's face it, there is a very SMALL audience for old shorthand books. These books are not high on the priority list for libraries to digitize. So if I can pay 15 bucks to have a book digitized that is important to me, that is worthwhile. I do think that the library should have the right to submit the book to the World Catalog or Google Books after it is digitized. I'm sure that they do. I'm quite sure that anyone can do anything they want with these public domain book scans. I'm not really that concerned about paying a few bucks to get the book digitized. For me, these books are important and should be made available to the general public.

  8. Maybe "scam" is a strong word. How about "rip-off", :-)? The site and their business are valid, I agree. I'm just questioning their business decisions, that's why I said "seems like" a scam, not that it was. That's all.

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