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Recently I have encountered a book which on its cover announces itself to be Electromagnetic Radiation And The Mechanical Reactions Arising From It, Being An Adams Prize Essay In The University Of Cambridge, by George Adolphus Schott, first published in 1912.
Schott was a physicist notable for predicting the radiation lost by electrons passing through a magnetic field. This was recognized experimentally in 1947 and we know it today as synchrotron radiation. Important stuff.
The copy I have seen is a modern edition, "published" --you will soon understand why I put the word in quotes-- in 2009 by General Books, LLC.
I picked it up. I looked at the title page. A horrifying suspicion began to dawn.
This really seems like an odd format for a title page. Also, the wrinkle in the page does not bespeak great care in the publisher's quality control.
A close examination reveals multiple errors; for example, the phrase PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M. A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS becomes PKINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M. A. AT THE UNIVEKBITY PEESS.
I opened the book to a page with a lot of math on it, page 134. It contained Section 176.
( Behind the cut, a chilling glimpse of page 134 )
Page 134 of the General Books edition is, in fact, useless gibberish.
The entire book is useless gibberish. It's the worst excuse for a book I've ever seen.
Prof. Schott has become a casualty of the digital age. Lots of old books have been scanned. Facsimile files of them are available on the Web, especially the ones, such as Electromagnetic Radiation, whose copyright has expired.
General Books LLC, and other firms, offer to publish new books, the paper kind, derived from such scans, using modern print-on-demand systems. They offer millions of titles. A customer buys one. An OCR file is dumped into the POD machinery, a fresh paper volume emerges, and the new-old book is shipped off.
Many online booksellers offer this book. On Amazon.com, the product description includes this:
Presumably the publisher feels this is adequate warning to customers about to buy Page 134 and a bunch of pages like it.
But as we have seen, using OCR on a mathematical text is The Wrong Thing to do.
What's more aggravating is that the scanned image files-- from which the OCR versions are derived-- would make a far more satisfactory book if they were printed out. And General Books offers purchasers a look at these files online:
Their Web site offers some further interesting information in the form of FAQs:
( Rather pathetic FAQs behind cut )
From this experience, I've realized that there are implicit assumptions I make when I buy a "book." I expect that the publisher has made a reasonable attempt to fill the pages with text that makes sense.
I've also learned there are publishers willing to make a quick buck from "the long tail" by selling (something they call) books without making any attempt whatsoever to assure that they are readable.
Unwary purchasers of print-on-demand books, such as UNIVEKBITY libraries, may find severe disappointment. If there are any publishers putting out decent-quality editions of old books like Schott's they unfortunately have to compete with clowns like General Books.
Schott was a physicist notable for predicting the radiation lost by electrons passing through a magnetic field. This was recognized experimentally in 1947 and we know it today as synchrotron radiation. Important stuff.
The copy I have seen is a modern edition, "published" --you will soon understand why I put the word in quotes-- in 2009 by General Books, LLC.
Behind the Cover Lies the Sad Truth
I picked it up. I looked at the title page. A horrifying suspicion began to dawn.
This really seems like an odd format for a title page. Also, the wrinkle in the page does not bespeak great care in the publisher's quality control.
A close examination reveals multiple errors; for example, the phrase PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M. A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS becomes PKINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M. A. AT THE UNIVEKBITY PEESS.
I opened the book to a page with a lot of math on it, page 134. It contained Section 176.
( Behind the cut, a chilling glimpse of page 134 )
Page 134 of the General Books edition is, in fact, useless gibberish.
The entire book is useless gibberish. It's the worst excuse for a book I've ever seen.
Prof. Schott has become a casualty of the digital age. Lots of old books have been scanned. Facsimile files of them are available on the Web, especially the ones, such as Electromagnetic Radiation, whose copyright has expired.
General Books LLC, and other firms, offer to publish new books, the paper kind, derived from such scans, using modern print-on-demand systems. They offer millions of titles. A customer buys one. An OCR file is dumped into the POD machinery, a fresh paper volume emerges, and the new-old book is shipped off.
Many online booksellers offer this book. On Amazon.com, the product description includes this:
Notes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.
Presumably the publisher feels this is adequate warning to customers about to buy Page 134 and a bunch of pages like it.
But as we have seen, using OCR on a mathematical text is The Wrong Thing to do.
What's more aggravating is that the scanned image files-- from which the OCR versions are derived-- would make a far more satisfactory book if they were printed out. And General Books offers purchasers a look at these files online:
When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there.On the back cover is a code number. Type it into a form on the Million-Books site, and you will be allowed to download a PDF of the scanned version of the book. Why couldn't they put that on paper, instead of the OCR gibberish? Having investigated, I still have no idea.
A Word from the Publisher
Their Web site offers some further interesting information in the form of FAQs:
( Rather pathetic FAQs behind cut )
Bookworm Beware
From this experience, I've realized that there are implicit assumptions I make when I buy a "book." I expect that the publisher has made a reasonable attempt to fill the pages with text that makes sense.
I've also learned there are publishers willing to make a quick buck from "the long tail" by selling (something they call) books without making any attempt whatsoever to assure that they are readable.
Unwary purchasers of print-on-demand books, such as UNIVEKBITY libraries, may find severe disappointment. If there are any publishers putting out decent-quality editions of old books like Schott's they unfortunately have to compete with clowns like General Books.
