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MatPlus.Net Forum General Biographies and databases
 
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(1) Posted by Sarah Hornecker [Monday, Aug 18, 2008 23:29]; edited by Sarah Hornecker [08-08-18]

Biographies and databases


Dear composers, historians and biographers!

Dr. Staudte and me are always gathering data of deceased composers that are publically available. However, we try to make sure they are not abused later (only nationality, name, date of birth and date of death are saved, I think). So if anyone has any data that is not available yet - or any kind of biographies - we'd like to get it. The availabiliry can be checked at http://zulu.maia.ch/~iseli/cgi/twiki/bin/view/PCCC/ComposersNamesInVariousAlphabets.

In the end, I think, the objective is:
1. A complete database of all chess composers
2. A complete biography of all chess composers
3. Making both publically available to an extent that does not threaten today's people.

Rainer works on de.wikipedia.org by writing biographies of composers, where secondary sources are necessary for reference. I see my work in publicity, e.g. making this interesting to everyone and here and there shooting some photos (which basically can be used by everyone giving proper attribution).

Now I just hope, this won't be deleted as an advertising article, but rather be interesting to everyone, too. I think, there are lots of obituaries and other interesting informations available (on chessproblem.net, recently a collection of published articles has begun where writers are invited to ask the magazine editor and send in) but there's no such collection - as far as I'm aware - of public domain articles.

Please note that for an article classifying as public domain several restrictions apply. It must be usable under the Berne convention too (which means, the author must be deceased for 70 years). Furthermore, the laws of your local country must be followed (there are a few that exceed this, especially Mexico and Ivory Coast).

Here we come to my questions:
1. Is there an archive of public domain articles, books etc.?
2. Is anyone willing to scan public domain articles, books etc.? (I did so with "Das indische Problem" of 1903 which took maybe one minute per page, at normal resolution 30-40 seconds per page should be possible, but it depends on the format, too).
3. If anyone is willing to do so, would anyone (or anyone else) host it? Note that I don't like Google books. Sadly my webspace is limited (I have place for one or two books but then it's over) and Kotesovec only will take composition books, I think.

I talk about all kinds of chess books here, not only those about composers. Also, I believe there should be some overly protected archive that could survive several centuries, for the worst possible cases. Sadly this doesn't seem to be possible yet. I had an interesting conversation about that some time ago, that it is possible the internet as well as all cultural etc. achievement is destroyed (especially in case of a global war) so a backup is needed. However, for the beginning the strategy of 20 people would be enough. This means, someone should host it and at least 20 people should download it and save it locally. If the hosting stops, peer-to-peer is a good choice for distribution (thanks to Kirill Kryukov here for telling me this happened with tablebases, only without the hoster part).

If anyone has a lot of resources, it'd also be very nice if he could download all currently available chess books from internet (like Google books).

Sorry, I don't talk clearly, that's a bad issue but I hope you still understand. Here in short:
I just want a bookfilled available database of all public domain articles and stuff that have to do with chess. Also, biographical hints to Dr. Staudte or me are welcome. If you want to specifically help us out, public domain photos would be best at this moment.

Best,
Siegfried
 
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(2) Posted by Joost de Heer [Monday, Aug 18, 2008 23:46]; edited by Joost de Heer [08-08-18]

archive.org already has several chess books:

http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=mediatype%3Atexts%20AND%20subject%3A"chess";

Anders Thulin has several e-books:

http://www.anders.thulin.name/SUBJECTS/CHESS_PROBLEMS/
 
 
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(3) Posted by [Tuesday, Aug 19, 2008 19:03]; edited by [08-08-19]

>Dr. Staudte and me are always gathering data of deceased composers that are publically
>available. However, we try to make sure they are not abused later (only nationality,
>name, date of birth and date of death are saved, I think). So if anyone has any data
>that is not available yet - or any kind of biographies - we'd like to get it. The
>availabiliry can be checked at [..wiki URL...]


An important part of such an effort is to keep a fairly high data quality. I think it
should be important to document used sources, and also to state contradictory
information, where such exists. Jeremy Gaige has showed the way in this particular
field of study, I think -- see his Chess Personalia (recently republished).
This Wiki does not seem the right place for that kind of information, particularly as
it states that it is primarily about names.

For example, I see that Anton Nowotny is said to have died '09.03.1871' (which I
assumes means September 3, 1871, by comparing with other entries). On whose authority
do we have that? Gaige has two mentions of the date '09-03-1871', yet he seems
to have considered both as dubious as the main entry only has the year 1871.
But in Gaige, the dates should be interpreted as March 9, 1871 ('day-month-year'
as stated on page x).

Added later: ... though on closer examination, it seems I must have got confused:
the wiki dates are as far as I now see in the same format. Sorry about that.

>3. If anyone is willing to do so, would anyone (or anyone else) host it?

Www.archive.org will host practically anything. It's what they do.
 
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(4) Posted by [Tuesday, Aug 19, 2008 19:11]

>Anders Thulin has several e-books:

In this context, I hope they will be considered unsuitable: they are
editions, not originals. They are not scans. They have been altered.

For many purposes, it is important to be able to go back to something
as close to the original as possible: bitmap scans of original editions
(or reprint editions with important changes) would be the second best thing
to the real thing, provided image integrity can be assured, and image
quality maintained.
 
   
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(5) Posted by Sarah Hornecker [Tuesday, Aug 19, 2008 19:42]; edited by Sarah Hornecker [08-08-19]

That's true, Anders!

While you do a great job and I like to have the books available, for that particular purpose the originals would be needed. Thanks for the hint to archive.org! Also, I'll tell Rainer Staudte about this discussion.


PS: The data in twiki is DD.MM.YYYY as far as I know.
 
   
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(6) Posted by Sarah Hornecker [Sunday, Aug 24, 2008 04:16]

For the database, I'd like to have good sources for the exact dates of - see brackets:

Mettler, Josef
(born 2nd or 4th February 1929)

Schudel, Hans J.
born 28th August 1915
(deceased on 2nd or 3rd February 2004)

Chepizny, Viktor - or however you write his name
(born 18th or 28th February 1934)


Thanks in advance!
Siegfried
 
   
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(7) Posted by Vladimir Tyapkin [Sunday, Aug 24, 2008 09:24]; edited by Vladimir Tyapkin [08-08-24]

Chepizhny - born on February 18th, 1934 according to "Viktor Chepizhny" by Mike Prcic. I think we can trust this source.
Schudel - died on February 2nd, 2004 according to Die Schwalbe, heft 206, p.386
 
   
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(8) Posted by Thomas Maeder [Sunday, Aug 24, 2008 12:41]

 QUOTE 
Mettler, Josef (born 2nd or 4th February 1929)

4.2.1929
 
 
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MatPlus.Net Forum General Biographies and databases