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Thread: Sharing Pen History Knowledge

  1. #21
    Senior Member Deb's Avatar
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    Default Re: Sharing Pen History Knowledge

    Quote Originally Posted by Farmboy View Post
    Interesting subject. I find that all to often well researched and documented information is presented in answer to a question only to have the author scorned because the facts or information does not match the popular beliefs or the desired answer.

    Another interesting case is the blatant plagiarism and data fabrication by some on the Internet forums. Examples here where one poster was called out only to have others defend the OP and belittle those trying to correct the record.

    Sometimes one asks oneself why expend the effort and likely funds necessary to find source data and then share. Which is an answer to one tangentially posed question above.
    Perhaps you got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning. The example that you give of plagiarised material being published here was resolved despite the objections of a very few. No cause for alarm there. Maybe you could be a bit more specific about the other issue you raise.

    Such problems, annoying though they may be, have never made me think of giving up researching and sharing information. Not for an instant
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  2. #22
    Senior Member FredRydr's Avatar
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    Default Re: Sharing Pen History Knowledge

    Quote Originally Posted by Farmboy View Post
    Interesting subject. I find that all to often well researched and documented information is presented in answer to a question only to have the author scorned because the facts or information does not match the popular beliefs or the desired answer.

    Another interesting case is the blatant plagiarism and data fabrication by some on the Internet forums. Examples here where one poster was called out only to have others defend the OP and belittle those trying to correct the record.

    Sometimes one asks oneself why expend the effort and likely funds necessary to find source data and then share. Which is an answer to one tangentially posed question above.
    On the contrary, my observation is that it happens not often at all, except in the case of just a few whose manner of offering such information is so ego-centric and acerbic that its presentation is lost, and it becomes a boring litany of who-said-what and what-it-means culminating in who-gets-the-last-word, alienating all who might otherwise benefit. Both the examples you give refer to the same person, but certainly he doesn't meet a level of "all too often."

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    Senior Member AzJon's Avatar
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    Default Re: Sharing Pen History Knowledge

    Quote Originally Posted by Jon Szanto View Post
    Behold, the future of pen knowledge and discussion
    What in tarnation did I just watch. Imma gonna go cradle my pens now and tell them everything is alright and I will never let the bad man near them.

    Sheesh.

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    Default Re: Sharing Pen History Knowledge

    Why can't they sell kindle edition of these books I wonder

    I know It's much nicer having physical copies. However surely it's a win, win. For the author and for the publisher. in the sense you don't have the worry of getting the production number right and you get a income from the sales. Rather then it being limited to a year etc when the book is first out.

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    Senior Member FredRydr's Avatar
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    Default Re: Sharing Pen History Knowledge

    Quote Originally Posted by top pen View Post
    Why can't they sell kindle edition of these books I wonder....
    Excellent point.

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    Default Re: Sharing Pen History Knowledge

    I did a short eBay and Google search to find publications on many topics discussed here.

    Google Books is a good resource for vintage magazines and other publications.

  10. #27
    Senior Member silverlifter's Avatar
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    Default Re: Sharing Pen History Knowledge

    Quote Originally Posted by top pen View Post
    Why can't they sell kindle edition of these books I wonder.
    If the publisher is a smaller house that does not already have a digital arm, they would need to sell the rights to one who does. Which presumes a buyer who sees a market that would sustain the investment in digitising these books...
    Vintage. Cursive italic. Iron gall.

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    Default Re: Sharing Pen History Knowledge

    With most modern book contracts, the rights revert to the author after the book has gone out of print. I would contact the author and see if there's interest in producing a digital version, which costs next to nothing.

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    Senior Member calamus's Avatar
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    Default Re: Sharing Pen History Knowledge

    I've had Kindles for years, and none of them displayed photographs very well. Maybe the latest and greatest and most expensive models nowadays can do a decent job of showing them, but still the screens are too small to show much detail. I don't think that pen books with glorious photographs will translate well to Kindle format.
    Quid rides? Mutato nomine de te fabula narratur. — Horace
    (What are you laughing at? Just change the name and the joke’s on you.)

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    Default Re: Sharing Pen History Knowledge

    I've been thinking that about this entire thread: if the book is out of print and hard to find, why not digitize it? I'm sure some major institution would digitize it into a historical record somewhere. This to me seems like the best idea, followed by contacting the original author(s) to see if they would/could do another run of books.

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    Default Re: Sharing Pen History Knowledge


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    Default Re: Sharing Pen History Knowledge

    Quote Originally Posted by calamus View Post
    I've had Kindles for years, and none of them displayed photographs very well. Maybe the latest and greatest and most expensive models nowadays can do a decent job of showing them, but still the screens are too small to show much detail. I don't think that pen books with glorious photographs will translate well to Kindle format.

    For a great book, no but if the issue is sharing valuable information, ebooks would be a fine compromise.

  19. #33
    Senior Member Jon Szanto's Avatar
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    Default Re: Sharing Pen History Knowledge

    If anyone wants to see a good example, Richard Binder made pretty much the entirety of his site available as three volumes of eBooks. I have the Kindle version, which is readable on many platforms (I don't actually own a Kindle, but my wife does). There is a volume on Repair, one on basic pen knowledge and one that encompasses the Glossopedia (IIRC). There is a nominal fee and, yes, it mostly duplicates what is available on his site, but there are times when working on pens I've opened it up to the Repair stuff rather than going online, and you can read on flights, etc.

    I think the large books would lose some of the appeal, such as Andy Lambrou's, but I'd kill to have Paul Erano's book to be able to recommend in an e-version, and the "Pen Repair" from Marshall/Oldfield would be another great ebook.
    "When Men differ in Opinion, both Sides ought equally to have the Advantage of being heard by the Publick;
    and that when Truth and Error have fair Play, the former is always an overmatch for the latter."

    ~ Benjamin Franklin

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  21. #34
    Senior Member carlos.q's Avatar
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    Default Re: Sharing Pen History Knowledge

    Just look up "www.lionandpen.com" in the Wayback machine search (web.archive.org). It's like digital archaeology...

  22. #35
    Senior Member Deb's Avatar
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    Default Re: Sharing Pen History Knowledge

    It would be wonderful if we could get some of those pen books in Kindle format - except that, for me at least, the Kindle would need to be the size of my monitor before I could make any sense of the illustrations. That's partly my eyesight and partly the size of the Kindle. That's not to say I wouldn't gain from the text, of course.

    I get a little angry about what happened to Lion and Pen to which I contributed in a small way. It was a tremendous resource and could have been saved easily but some among those responsible made sure that didn't happen. I don't know why. If you look at the history of the many pen groups and boards that have existed since the usenet days, we are an argumentative lot, much given to throwing the baby out with the bath water. That's one of the reasons I appreciate Fountain Pen Geeks so much. We are allowed to have our spats without interference and we move on. Heaven forfend that this board goes the way of those others.
    Regards,
    Deb
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    Senior Member Voiren's Avatar
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    Default Re: Sharing Pen History Knowledge

    eBooks are readable on computers - you don't need to use Kindle hardware to read them. The problem with ones with lots of high quality images is that the file sizes balloon though. (Think of a full-colour PDF with the same number of pages - if you produce them at screen res and not print res they are far more wieldy, but they still get into the multiple MB per book). You need whoever produces them to consider that and use image formats that compress as well as possible.

  24. #37
    Senior Member Deb's Avatar
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    Default Re: Sharing Pen History Knowledge

    No, for it to be any good for me it would actually need to be in ebook format. I use my Kindle because of its portability. I am rarely in a position to sit in front of my PC or laptop for the length of time it would take to read a book.
    Regards,
    Deb
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  25. #38
    Senior Member guyy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Sharing Pen History Knowledge

    You can convert back and forth from ebook to kindle mobi with Calibre (free software).

  26. #39
    Senior Member Voiren's Avatar
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    Default Re: Sharing Pen History Knowledge

    Quote Originally Posted by Deb View Post
    No, for it to be any good for me it would actually need to be in ebook format. I use my Kindle because of its portability. I am rarely in a position to sit in front of my PC or laptop for the length of time it would take to read a book.
    I meant you can read it on both - if the images wouldn't display clearly enough on Kindle hardware, you could open the ebook on a computer (or phone, tablet etc).

  27. #40
    Senior Member Deb's Avatar
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    Default Re: Sharing Pen History Knowledge

    Yeah right, that would be convenient with my PC at home and me elsewhere with my Kindle. I'm trying to point out to you that this wouldn't work for me, given my circumstances. I know about Calibre. The image is too small on my Kindle and you suggest opening it on my *phone*?

    Really. Let's stop at that.
    Regards,
    Deb
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