NavList:

Alex E, you wrote:
"I disagree with your assessment.
The missing pages cover the most interesting part: the Lunars. "

There are now THREE editions of Moore available on google books,
plus the 1826 Bowditch and Taylor's book and even more.
While the topic of lunars may be missing from the edition of
Moore that you checked, it's certainly well-covered and from
different points of view in the others.
Also, don't forget that while lunars are the
most interesting part for some of us, they are the least interesting
for others. This rapidly-growing online library is a
goldmine of information regardless of your specific interests.

And you wrote:
"I think that digitalizing a book like that is worse than not
digitalizing them at all.
Because now everybody knows that the book is "digitalized",
and this will discourage someone from digitalizing it again. "

Half-full, half-empty... it's all the same.
But 90% full is worse than empty? Wow.

I wrote:
"Also note that these are not "books for download". "

And you replied:
"Yes, unfortunately this is what many digitalizers are doing.
(Mystic Seaport Museum, for example).
Apparently they want to leave some opportunity for themselves
to charge money for downloads. "

In the general case, do you think profit is wrong?
You're a navigation hobbyist, right? It's wonderful when things
are available for free, but don't you think it's reasonable for
a hobbyist to expect to pay for toys? Even toys like pages
from Moore's Practical Navigator?

In this specific case, I actually don't agree that this limitation of
download facility has been done to enhance revenue, but
I do think it lowers their fixed costs. The problem is that a lot of
web users end up being "pack rats". If a book is made available in a
form for easy download, "pack rats" will download it immediately
and burn it to a CD whether they intend to read it this year,
this decade, or never. We've probably all done this at one time
or another. The bandwidth expense to the "pack rat"
is his or her own business, but there is also a bandwidth expense
to the service, and that might be a real concern for some of these
institutions with online libraries.

-FER


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