The World Library Book Beat Blog
Volume 2, Number 5
Tuesday, May 01, 2012

by John Guagliardo
Founder, World Public Library

What is the Most Important Book that has Ever Been Written?

A few weeks ago, I was having a meeting with some visiting dignitaries that were in town for the APEC Conference and one of them asked me, “What is the most important work of literature there is?”. I thought about it for a few moments, and replied that “importance” is too subjective to each person, group, and culture. I pointed out that I couldn’t possibly wish that what was an important book to me would have to be of any importance to anyone else. Unfortunately, my guest was not going to be satisfied with my reply. I am sure they all felt it to be too vague and noncommittal.

Thus, I would have to say that “importance” in this case is equivalent to “influence”, meaning that what makes a book important is, first, its influence on the readers of the book, and consequently, influence in world events.

One could make an argument that for each period in history there was an event that was the catalyst of the period, and that quite often a book was the influencing factor behind the event. I guess that the old saying, “The pen is mightier than the sword”, does have some truth to it.

Sometime ago, I came across a list of the 100 Most Influential Books of All Time. It is a fantastic list of books. Each and every book in the list is arguably just as important as the next one in forming the world as we know it.

Think about it, Einstein’s Principles of Relativity, formed the core set of principles that modern-day physics and technology is based on, yet without Newton’s Laws of Motion Einstein could not have written his theory. It would be almost impossible to say which one is more important. The interconnectivity of literary thoughts and scientific theories is what enables succeeding generations to build their worldviews. I mean how can we say that Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems is less important than Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution.

However, if I had to name a book, I would have to say, there is only one book, or collection of works, that had especial influence for me. That is to say, after studying these works, I had to go back and re-examine what I had previously thought of as certainties. It led me to a significant change in my perception of history and the world. For me, I would say it is the Dead Sea Scrolls.

I realize that might seem illogical, because for the most part they were unknown for two thousand years (the discovery occurring from 1947-1956), and therefore, being so recent, it could not yet have had significant enough influence on the world as we know it today. Additionally, after their discovery not much more than a few academic papers have been written about them. However, for me, the Dead Sea Scrolls changed my world. And did so by profoundly influencing a change in the way I viewed books and works I had previously read. And, I now had to go back and re-examine and re-read many canonical works with a different critical read than before.

When I think of the events of the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, the selection of Gospels that was to form the New Testament, I can’t help but think of how things would have turned out differently if The Gospel of Judas or The Gospel of Mary were included.

I don’t know if I had surprised my guests by choosing the Dead Sea Scrolls as my answer, or if they had thought that I was just trying to be politically correct. Either way, I encourage others to take a fresh look at these precious finds and enjoy the possibilities that the discovery of these scrolls may signify.

The World Library Book Beat Blog
Volume 2, Number 3
Tuesday, April 17, 2012

by John Guagliardo
Founder, World Public Library

Encyclopedia Britannica Goes Paperless After 244 Years

A few days ago when I read in the Chicago Tribune, Encyclopaedia Britannica to end print Edition after 244 years. it took me back a bit. I know that online references are what everyone is using now, and I know that no one uses paper references anymore, but to see it in the Tribune really hit me. I often wonder how long it will be until all print and paperbound publications will no longer be used.

Back in 1996 when we saw the possibilities of online publications and reference materials we got really excited about the future. We never considered that we would see the transition so fast. I think the general consensus was that it’ll happen eventually, but not in our lifetime.

To be honest, I feel mixed emotions about the new paperless wave. There is definitely a sense of nostalgia for me, even to the point of igniting the imagination, when holding a printed bound book.

In the Huffington Post, Myron Taxman, one of the world's last door-to-door Encyclopedia Britannica salesmen, who also mourns the end of the print Edition, sums it up, "I understand that people have nostalgic feelings for the printed books. But we can do so many things with online and mobile products that we couldn't do with print, and that's where our business is now.”

"We just decided that it was better for the brand to focus on what really the future is all about," said Jorge Cauz, Encyclopaedia Britannica's president. "Our database is very large now, much larger than can fit in the printed edition. Our print set version is an abridged version of what we have online."

Founded in 1768 in Scotland, Britannica has been headquartered in Chicago since 1935, when it was under the ownership of Sears, Roebuck and Company. Marketed door-to-door for generations, it was a robust business that employed thousands of people, and sold more than 100,000 sets as recently as 1990, its best year ever, when it generated $650 million in revenue.

Within a few years, sales began to tumble, as consumers opted for home computers bundled with CD-ROM encyclopedias over the $1,500 leather-bound sets. More recently, the rise of Wikipedia and high-speed Internet has shifted reference libraries online, with only a few thousand copies of the Britannica printed version trickling out each year to libraries, schools and a handful of neo-Luddite homeowners, according to Cauz.

As we look to the future and see the limitless possibilities the Internet may offer, it is both awe-inspiring and frightening. I often hear folks voice their apprehensions of what may be if we embrace “the newest” and “the latest” too quickly. To me publications like the Encyclopaedia Britannica are more than just a set of reference books. They are substantive books, both in content and in heft, that I held in my hands and relied on for decades. When I think of the volumes and volumes of them I have thumbed through I am reminded of the most precious moments of my youth, where all the knowledge of the universe, seemingly infinite, was bound, and beckoned me to explore. The hours of page-turning discoveries I had when I was in grade school, I wouldn’t wish any student to miss out on.

Although it is not the same, we do have some digital facsimile of these older classic leather bound editions available for download, and can be easily imported to your smart device or reader. I recommend using Apple's iPad to read them on. The iBooks app works really well with our PDF version of the Encyclopedia Britannica, (Download Encyclopedia Britannica). 

The World Library Book Beat Blog
Volume 2, Number 2
Tuesday, April 4, 2012

by John Guagliardo
Founder, World Public Library

World Public Library Machine Translation Editions
58 Versions of 2,000,000 eBooks Producing 116,000,000 eBooks

All of our 2,000,000 eBooks will soon be available in multiple language editions.  Each eBook will be available to be read in any of 58 different languages.  The original eBook is automatically converted by our Literary Machine Translation System (LMTS), which produces a translated edition.  This edition will have the original page side-by-side with the Machine Translated page in order to provide ease of cross-reference assistance in clarifying contextual meaning.

What are World Public Library Machine Translation Editions?

World Public Library Literary Machine Translation System (LMTS), is an automated translation service that provides automated translations between 58 different languages. It produces translated editions of all of our 2,000,000 eBooks.  Each eBook will be available to be downloaded in any combination of our supported languages. With World Public Library Machine Translation Editions, we hope to make information universally accessible and useful, no matter which language it is written in.

How does it work?

When World Public Library LMTS generates an eBook, it looks for patterns in hundreds of millions of documents to help decide on the best translation possible. By detecting patterns in documents that have already been translated by human translators, World Public Library LMTS can make intelligent guesses as to what the appropriate translation would be. This process of seeking patterns in large amounts of text is called "statistical machine translation". Since the translations are generated by machines, not all translations will be perfect. The more human-translated documents that World Public Library LMTS can analyze in a specific language, the better the translation quality will be. This is why translation accuracy will sometimes vary across languages.

Statistical Machine Translation (SMT) as a research area started in the late 1980s with the Candide project at IBM.  IBM's original approach maps individual words to words and allows for deletion and insertion of words.

Lately, various researchers have shown better translation quality with the use of phrase translation. Phrase-based Machine Translations, which are based on a “phrase alignment” model, statistically computes translation of whole phrases rather than by words alone. 

World Public Library’s LMTS uses a combination of syntax-based translation with a joint-probability model for phrase translation and transfer rules based on a rich translation lexicon.  This builds a phrase arising from syntax-based models that either use real syntax trees generated by syntactic parsers, or tree transfer methods motivated by syntactic reordering patterns.  Although the outcome is not always as elegant as the words written by an author, the base meaning is clear enough for a basic understanding of that author’s intended meaning. 

What languages does World Public Library Machine Translation Editions support?

World Public Library Machine Translation Editions currently publishes in 58 languages:

Current beta languages are:

●        Armenian

●        Azerbaijani

●        Basque

●        Georgian

●        Haitian Creole

●        Latin

●        Urdu

World Public Library LMTS tests other languages, called "beta languages" that may have less-reliable translation quality than our supported languages. We are always working to support other languages and will introduce them as soon as the translation quality meets our standards. 

For more information regarding the LMTS technology (click here).

We hope you will enjoy reading the new World Public Library Machine Translation Editions.