Active TopicsActive Topics  Display List of Forum MembersMemberlist  CalendarCalendar  Search The ForumSearch  HelpHelp
  RegisterRegister  LoginLogin
General Discussion
 FSI Language Courses Forum : Learning Languages : General Discussion
Message Icon Topic: Retyping a text Post Reply Post New Topic
Page  of 2 Next >>
Author Message
nieuk
Newbie
Newbie


Joined: 15 April 2006
Location: Australia
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 26
Quote nieuk Replybullet Topic: Retyping a text
    Posted: 10 January 2007 at 3:34am
Ok, so as I mentioned in smoen's thread; my state library has a few courses for the rarer languages (Lingala, Hausa, Igbo, etc.)
 
I went in today to see the Hungarian Reader. The material I saw is indeed, original material. But I have no realistic way of getting it. I can't borrow the material, I can't get access to a private room there to use a scanner... I can't take a scanner into the library, hah. And photocopying works out more expensive than the actual books.
 
I have to ask... What do you think of retyping one of the textbooks? Legally possible? If so, I have a decent grasp of Indonesian (post spelling reform, ahh) so I could retype the text that is available ("Indonesian: newspaper reader") over the course of time.. It's only 271 pages, so shouldn't be an excessive amount of time I don't think. If I do retype it, I'll photocopy the introduction, cover page, etc. just to show what source it has come from.
 
I'm not sure if I'll be able to do any other courses since I'll have to effectively double check the spelling of every word if I'm not familiar with the language.
IP IP Logged
Kubelek
Newbie
Newbie


Joined: 04 September 2006
Location: Poland
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 6
Quote Kubelek Replybullet Posted: 10 January 2007 at 8:39am
If you have a digital camera maybe you could take photos of the pages. I've done that because i don't have a scanner. It's not that time consuming.

If they let you do that, you could split the the pages and other people could help you with retyping the text. 271 seems like an awful lot of work for one person, especially that it's a reader.



Edited by Kubelek - 10 January 2007 at 8:39am
IP IP Logged
onebir
Ambassador
Ambassador


Joined: 16 October 2006
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 116
Quote onebir Replybullet Posted: 10 January 2007 at 9:35am
Some OCR software can cope with photographed pages, and many foreign languages (eg Abby Finereader). If you don't have this, you could send the tiffs (if possible after applying jpeg compression) to someone who has (using a file transfer service)

The photos & OCR'd text could be distributed for manual checking by a group of people.

(Do the have the Indonesian Basic Course in your library too BTW?  That's rare  as hen's teeth...)
IP IP Logged
Sir Nigel
Contributor
Contributor


Joined: 16 March 2006
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 35
Quote Sir Nigel Replybullet Posted: 10 January 2007 at 6:18pm
Although not always accurate, I use ReadIRIS's OCR feature to create an image PDF with the electronically recognised text within the file so it's searchable, copyable etc.


Edited by Sir Nigel - 10 January 2007 at 6:19pm
Insurance Excuse:
The accident was due to the road bending.
IP IP Logged
nieuk
Newbie
Newbie


Joined: 15 April 2006
Location: Australia
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 26
Quote nieuk Replybullet Posted: 11 January 2007 at 2:55am
I considered the digicam and thought that if I could find a quiet corner I could give it a go. I've never used OCR software before, but I'm sure I'll figure it out.
 
They don't have the Indonesian Basic Course in their database, which isn't to say they don't have it - all of these courses only appeared recently. They're not on show for the general public, I have to actually request them to be retrieved from the storage stack (takes them about half an hour - must be a lot of books back there, haha).
 
I noticed that NTIS don't have the Indonesan newspaper reader listed, but it is listed in the library databse as a FSI publication. I'll head in next week to check it out and give the digicam a go. I have a 7.2mp, so should turn out clear enough.
 
If all goes well I should have the Indonesian reader done in some fashion sooner or later.. and then I could maybe get some other texts on the go :)
IP IP Logged
onebir
Ambassador
Ambassador


Joined: 16 October 2006
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 116
Quote onebir Replybullet Posted: 11 January 2007 at 2:46pm
nieuk - have you tried telling the staff there about this site?

i emailed some people at US uni language labs recently - they had FSI material, but it was password protected.  they accepted it was public domain, and gave me/GDF access to the material without raising any objection.  (the site should have the yoruba and luganda audio pretty soon as a result)

if you explain what you're doing to one of the (more senior) library staff - be prepared to show them the website and perhaps even the clauses in US copyright legislation that make the FSI stuff public domain - they could well react the same way.  librarians WANT people to have access to information, after all, far more people will have access to the stuff if you can get it online, and there's no legal reason not to...


IP IP Logged
nieuk
Newbie
Newbie


Joined: 15 April 2006
Location: Australia
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 26
Quote nieuk Replybullet Posted: 11 January 2007 at 4:21pm
I told the staff member that said I couldn't bring a scanner in.. Only normal staff though I think. Since it's only short, I'll get the Indonesian reader photographed and then I'll get in touch with some senior staff and send them the links to this site and stuff.
 
Where can I find the clauses for US copyright legislation?
IP IP Logged
onebir
Ambassador
Ambassador


Joined: 16 October 2006
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 116
Quote onebir Replybullet Posted: 12 January 2007 at 4:43am
IP IP Logged
nieuk
Newbie
Newbie


Joined: 15 April 2006
Location: Australia
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 26
Quote nieuk Replybullet Posted: 12 January 2007 at 5:52pm
Thanks for the links. I'm sure I'll find the reader useful as well :D
IP IP Logged
DemiPuppet
Administrator
Administrator


Joined: 27 May 2006
Location: United States
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 163
Quote DemiPuppet Replybullet Posted: 12 January 2007 at 7:54pm
Warning: It should be noted that the FSI works put out by the US government might not be in the public domain in Australia.  As far as I can tell, Australian copyright law does not make any exclusions for foreign works being in the public domain in their country of origin. Hopefully someone can prove me wrong.

For example, the FSI works would have been under copyright in the UK, except for the exemption given in UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 12-6:
Where the country of origin of the work is not an EEA state and the author of the work is not a national of an EEA state, the duration of copyright is that to which the work is entitled in the country of origin, provided that does not exceed the period which would apply under subsections (2) to (5).
http://www.jenkins-ip.com/patlaw/cdpa1.htm

Other EU countries have similar provisions. Unfortunately, US copyright law does not.


IP IP Logged
Page  of 2 Next >>
Post Reply Post New Topic
Printable version Printable version

Forum Jump
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot create polls in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum



This page was generated in 0.188 seconds.