New Books for the Library

[Aonghus]

So, it had been some time since I added to my library and I was about due.

After Comyn pointed me out me for researching the whole musical instrument / cruith thing, I kinda dragged my butt a bit, but told myself if I dug through and found some good info I should reward myself with a new book.

Of course if I dig through and found bad info – more reason to get better books :-)

So anyway, since the Crowther / Cruith project had a happy ending, I bought two “new” books.

They are actually both out of print, yet available as PDF ebooks.

They arrived in the mail Thursday.

“Old Irish and Highland Dress” by H.F. McClintock, which is the most oft cited work on the subject, if not the bible.

And

“From Celt to Viking, The sea Wolrd of Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, and Greenland” by T.C. Lethbridge original title: “Herdsmen and Hermits, Celtic Seafarers in the North Seas” which is slightly prosaic work on the subject but a pretty decent none the less as far as the information it brings together.

So, I was going to OCR the relevant chapters of the McClintock work (the PDF is pic format and not text) and see if I could add a nice page of it here on the site but – I wiped my PC the other day to do a clean install of windows etc and I seem to have misplaced my OCR software :-( my luck lately has been dreadful.

As far as my library goes, I am a mere two items shy of achieving antiquarian bliss. Of course of those two items, one is $600.00 dollar reprint of a six volume set of the Brehon laws. The other is a $300 – 500 dollar reprint of Eugene O’Curry’s “Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish”. They are both available as first additions but at even greater prices of course. Maybe if I wait long enough, someone will PDF those as well. Of course in waiting, I let slip past a version of O’Curry for a mere $230 bucks and I’m still sort of kicking myself over it.

But anyway, that brings me back to my library project in general, and a question for Comyn.

How think you best to publish my book list on here?

[Comyn]

As you have pointed out, we're still shaking out how best to use the site - but this is what I've done so far: In the Library, I created a Reference Materials for Celtic History, Archaeology, and Mythology book. Under that are several chapters:

• Books and Notes
• Items and Finds
• Maps and Scans

Then, when Guthrum posted the link to the Irish Cultural Centre, I stuck it in the Reference section too for lack of a better place.

I moved over three pages from the old AOL site pretty much as you had them over there. Into the Books and Notes section, each as a separate page. I edited one of them to have links to an image of the book cover and a link to Amazon, should anyone decide they would like to have a copy for themselves this makes it a lot easier.

When I added my books, I decided to create a new subchapter under Books and Notes for my own books. Each subpage under that chapter is a separate book.

You can add a chapter for Aonghus' books at the same level by going to the Books and Notes page (the page that you want the new page to appear UNDER), and click the 'add a child page' link at the bottom. This will create a page in the right place in the outline automatically, so you don't have to manually set it afterward.

You can certainly adopt another filing scheme - and any page you create can be moved around in the outline very easily by editing the page and selecting the outline dropdown list, choosing a new location and saving it again, so don't be shy about creating pages of content, they can be shuffled around later on if we decide to file it someplace else. The only thing to think about it whether you want a long list of books on a single page or many different pages. Obviously my preference right now is a separate page for each, since that's why I did for my books.

There isn't a 'database' or 'table' module installed at this time, so you can't simply upload an Excel file of data I'm afraid.

[Aonghus]

Under books and notes...

Rare books...

A Social History of Ancient Ireland
by P. W. Joyce

Old Irish and Highland Dress
by H. F. McClintock

A Guide to Early Irish Law
by Fergus Kelly

these books are in my lib and available to us, so they should come off the list.

[Comyn]

I do not see why we should remove them. Are they not still rare and hard to find even if you are lucky enough as to have a copy of them? I didnt think the list was supposed to be just a list of books you didnt have yet - but a list of good books that are out of print, no?

If you create a series of pages for Aonghus´s books, and post a dedicated page (or pages) for each, we could still make links from the rare list over to your official review maybe? Also, one of them already has a link out to a page where a guy has typed in some chapters of it which is a great resource in my opinion.

[Comyn]

Keep your eyes on Google (again? :) for some great OCR software (they are calling the components tesseract and Ocropus) this year. They have released the software as open source already, and if you were not aware, Google has been scanning in books now for some time so they are pretty much an authority on OCR - I´m looking forward to a web-based OCR where you upload the scans and get text in Google Docs.

[Comyn]

SimpleOCR is a free (and open source) OCR program for Windows
http://www.simpleocr.com/
but you cant select an area to scan.

[Aonghus]

that page was a list of books i was looking out for.. .probate at the time composed the list for easy refereance..

and the point is.. we now have access to some of them...

so.. if you feel you want to keep it anyway as it is anyway.. no biggy.

[Aonghus]

Níl mo leabhair liom!
(I dont have my books!)

Hey Guys,

I know I have a few books out on loan...

If you have a book of mine could you let me know which one(s)...

I need to update my library file..

I think Dairchan has my Celtic Heroic Age, (actually Dairchan do you have a couple of my books?)

Fiachra, I think has The Táin

Im not sure who has my Fergus Kelly book on Irish law, I think at large is also "The Celts" by Simon James or "The Celtic World" by Simon James.

I think Vollund has a book or two.. and maybe Eberwolf..

Anyway.. if anyone can correct or update me I would appriciate it greatly.

Aonghus

[Comyn]

I know that I had your Irish song book for a long long time (which I gave back to you at New Years '06 when you swung by here), but I don't have any of your historical texts. I do own my own copy of Thomas Kinsella's version of The Tain which I bet is the same edition you're trying to track down.

[Guthrum]

I have a copy of Brown Bear Brown Bear, What do you See? Is it yours?