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pdf of On Station?
Posted:
Feb 28, 2012 6:21 pmby bigredfoote
Does anyone know if there is a possibility of getting a pdf version of On Station anywhere? I would prefer not to carry a 2.5 lb hardcover book with me. I may just do the utility knife thing, since that is easier than scanning and reprinting, but for some reason I don't want to destroy my book. It's like some kind of training badge for me.
I'm not sure if it will work for the NSS bookstore, but Lonely Planet sells chapters in pdf :)
Jen
Re: pdf of On Station?
Posted:
Feb 29, 2012 5:43 pmby George Dasher
There is no pdf available from the NSS to my knowledge.
Isn't Lonely Planet abusing the copyright by doing that?
Re: pdf of On Station?
Posted:
Feb 29, 2012 5:45 pmby George Dasher
I also think the NSS has done a terrible job of promoting the new version...
Re: pdf of On Station?
Posted:
Feb 29, 2012 5:58 pmby GroundquestMSA
George, would it be possible for you to mention a few of the new features of the new edition? Or tell me where to read about it?
Re: pdf of On Station?
Posted:
Feb 29, 2012 6:09 pmby NZcaver
It's high time the NSS thought more about digital publication, in my humble opinion.
I bought George's book (first edition) a number of years ago, but sold it to another caver when it became just one more publication I couldn't drag all around the country with me every time I move. I have huge amount of digital info right here on the laptop, but apparently not much on cave survey. Surely somebody out there has made a digital cave survey publication?
George Dasher wrote:Isn't Lonely Planet abusing the copyright by doing that?
I think Jennifer means Lonely Planet sells chapters of
Lonely Planet in PDF. Their publication, their copyright. An excellent idea.
Re: pdf of On Station?
Posted:
Feb 29, 2012 9:36 pmby Cheryl Jones
E-pubs are in the works! The next big step is to upgrade our bookstore and associated software so we can deliver them, among other improvements an upgrade will provide.
Patience grasshoppers.
Cheryl
Re: pdf of On Station?
Posted:
Jul 14, 2012 6:03 pmby Jeff Bartlett
GroundquestMSA wrote:George, would it be possible for you to mention a few of the new features of the new edition? Or tell me where to read about it?
Re: pdf of On Station?
Posted:
Jul 14, 2012 10:04 pmby Teresa
I'm not a fan of books on pdf. Reason? Something like On Station took a long time and hard work to put together. The author and/or his designee should be able to profit from the work. Pdfs make books way too easy to rip off. It may be a thrill to get all that info for free, but it is a great discouragement to an author to spend hours, days and sometimes years putting together some work, and then some joyboy or girl comes along and steals it. Yep. Steals it. If an author doesn't want/need the money, that's one thing, but I've yet to see any author so well off that a few bucks aren't helpful. That's the reason we have so many proprietary reader devices...it's a way to go digital, but still earn something from ones' effort.
I fight this all the time in my job. The bottom line will be this: at some point, the good and trustworthy authors will go on strike and cease writing their manuscripts, because either they don't have the time or ability to give away the fruits of their labor, and they just simply get tired of their ungrateful public. If there is any reasonable lesson from the book Atlas Shrugged, that's the lesson: excellence must be paid for to avoid drowning in "free" mediocrity.
Raw information can be free. A orderly, readable product with formatting, editing, and distribution is not. It takes time and effort, and I'm personally against anyone who disrespects the creators of anything intellectual in this world, from a cereal box to magnum opus poetry, to a book on climbing technique.
It's the same argument with music, movies, etc.: Maybe the corporate model isn't the best thing, but people who disrespect the author, musician, or director and producers, does so at their peril of the author quitting and taking up selling real estate or something. It has happened.
Re: pdf of On Station?
Posted:
Jul 15, 2012 4:43 pmby wyandottecaver
Teresa,
I understand your position. However, consider google and wikipedia. Like it or not they ARE the reference sources now. Good, bad, and ugly. Information that does not go digital will simply not exist in a practical sense in a decade or so. There is a tremendous amount of amazing information....in latin. Guess how practical that information is today if it hasn't been translated?
There are certainly challenges to creating a working business model for e-pubs....but they do exist.
Re: pdf of On Station?
Posted:
Jul 15, 2012 5:04 pmby Jeff Bartlett
Is the new version tremendously expanded in regard to modern, digital cartography? It seems a digital version of the original On Station would be a touch ironic.
Re: pdf of On Station?
Posted:
Jul 15, 2012 5:10 pmby NZcaver
wyandottecaver wrote:Teresa,
I understand your position. However, consider google and wikipedia. Like it or not they ARE the reference sources now. Good, bad, and ugly. Information that does not go digital will simply not exist in a practical sense in a decade or so. There is a tremendous amount of amazing information....in latin. Guess how practical that information is today if it hasn't been translated?
There are certainly challenges to creating a working business model for e-pubs....but they do exist.
Eventually digital will be to print what print once was to writing on cave walls.
Re: pdf of On Station?
Posted:
Jul 16, 2012 2:49 pmby Dave Luckins
Cheryl Jones wrote:E-pubs are in the works! The next big step is to upgrade our bookstore and associated software so we can deliver them, among other improvements an upgrade will provide.
Patience grasshoppers.
Cheryl
Yep, patience...please. I'm flogging the volunteers as hard as I can (but, as you know, that doesn't work too well), some things take time and testing before they're launched. A new bookstore web site with errors will be worse than I'd like to think about. The new site WILL have eBooks, and yes, they are ready to go...
Dave Luckins, OVP
Re: pdf of On Station?
Posted:
Jul 16, 2012 4:20 pmby NZcaver
Dave Luckins wrote:Yep, patience...please. I'm flogging the volunteers as hard as I can (but, as you know, that doesn't work too well), some things take time and testing before they're launched. A new bookstore web site with errors will be worse than I'd like to think about. The new site WILL have eBooks, and yes, they are ready to go...
Dave Luckins, OVP
Re: pdf of On Station?
Posted:
Jul 17, 2012 8:43 pmby Bob Thrun
Teresa wrote:I'm not a fan of books on pdf. Reason? Something like On Station took a long time and hard work to put together. The author and/or his designee should be able to profit from the work. Pdfs make books way too easy to rip off. It may be a thrill to get all that info for free, but it is a great discouragement to an author to spend hours, days and sometimes years putting together some work, and then some joyboy or girl comes along and steals it. Yep. Steals it. If an author doesn't want/need the money, that's one thing, but I've yet to see any author so well off that a few bucks aren't helpful.
But the authors of the NSS books are not paid and the NSS is not a profit-making organization. We are trying to encourage the gathering of information on caves.
Re: pdf of On Station?
Posted:
Jul 24, 2012 12:40 pmby George Dasher
In the case of On Station Two (and On Station One)--both took years and years. They were a serious pain to put together, and--unfortunately--the new version is still weak in places and has some stuff (but not much) is just plain wrong.
The new stuff is interfingered all through the old version--so there is no way I can say "look here!"
As far as people stealing the information without giving me credit, I already feel very used by putting this book together. It was just too much work for the help I needed (and in some cases didn't get), plus I don't know that it will be the knowledgable how-do and reference publication it was meant to be.
As for books being totally replaced by digital information in the future--I can't see that happening. Hard-copy publications just have some serious advantages over digital things--one being that they are faster to read and a second being that you don't need a digital device and electricity to use them. Plus books can be fun and beautiful.