Multilingual Short Works Project: preference?

[lezer]

Hi everyone,
It was pointed out that at present there is no "multilingual" short works collection open - that is, a project where any short works of any language other than (modern) English can be submitted. This is probably because it takes some extra work for the BC & MC to take care of such a project compared to other projects (I can say, I've done it many times).

But it's a shame of course. So I'm considering whether I shouldn't volunteer to open up a new one.

Just wanted to check with the crowd: what would be most wanted:
- a multilingual poetry collection: any poetry in the PD in any language other than (modern) English (and perhaps French, since they have their own collection)
- a multilingual short prose collection: any short work, less than 70 minutes (so can fit into 1 section), that's not poetry, in the PD, and in any language other than (modern) English (and Dutch and German, since they have their own collection). Can be fiction or non-fiction.

Anna

PS anyone else with LV experience of course would be very welcome to start up something like this! But I say on purpose: you should have experience with Librivox, because as a coordinator you have to know the answer to a lot of questions of new readers from all over the world and you have to have some time available... (If you are in doubt whether you would be able to do this, perhaps you can help out to begin with, for example under someone's supervision)

[JohanLiebert]

I'm up for both, short work and poetry ....and I can also BC the poetry collection.

[MARTIN GEESON]

While acknowledging that it is a lot of labour for the organisers, I think it would be a shame if the multilingual poetry collections ceased.

There have been some excellent and imaginative English-language poetry solos and group projects in the last year or so, and it's no exaggeration to say that poetry is thriving on LibriVox. Commercial audio offers the familiar and the over-familiar, for the most part.

So if the multilingual collections fall by the wayside, that will be a loss to new readers wanting to try out a short piece in their first language, as well as to rusty polyglots like me. Great and good poets should be heard in their own language. Only last night I was listening to my beloved Cavafy in a recent LV collection (beautifully read by loubet) - then fell asleep thumbing through a dog-eared English translation. This makes me think of LV as a truly civilising influence.

Ramble ramble...

Martin

[lezer]

I never thought of this option:

Would it be too difficult to have it just short works do you think ? The children's one accepts both I know.

Anne

So combining poetry and prose - no real reason why not to, right?

Anna

[carolb]

As an English speaker, my French and Latin are far too rusty and inadequate to contribute - but I do think it's worth keeping both Multilingual Short Works and Multilingual Poetry. Not everyone likes to read poetry, while short stories can be rather daunting for a newcomer.

There are so many wonderful languages to be heard here, it is well worth giving the choice.

Carol

[lezer]

Yes, I'm getting quite excited about it myself again. Will try to introduce some labour-saving things perhaps, but we'll about that at the start.

(May also be that I'm just shirking some work for my real-life job that I should be doing today anything to distract me!)

[Piotrek81]

I'm totally IN FAVOUR OF both projects mentioned by lezer. I also think they should be kept separate because it makes much more sense to keep poetry and prose apart than to mix them. First of all, the amonut of free slots in a collection is limited, and then it is probably also more convenient for listeners. I would be willing to contribute both poems and short stories in Polish:)
Having said that I'm not going to volunteer to open either of these projects, as I don't have any experience in BCing group projects.

[lezer]

But I doubt whether anyone really downloads a whole collection and listens from start to finish right? I mean, all sections are in different language anyway.

Is it not the case that people just find a section in their language by searching the catalogue (all sections can be found by title or author separately by a search) and then listen to 1 or 2 sections? If that is the case, it doesn't matter that stories and poetry are mixed.

Looking back at the 2 short story multilingual collections in the catalogue at present, they seem to have taken a long time to complete (up to 2 years).


[Of course, if I start this again I would expect a lot of people to help out and proof-listen a section once in a while!

Somehow, I don't like prooflistening at all (even though I do like listening to audiobooks myself) - so that would be a BIG HELP and a lot of reduction of frustration if I easily find proof-listeners who are willing to listen to a section once in a while... ]

[Cori]

How about a bimonthly Multilingual Anything? While I completely understand the horror some listeners will feel when downloading a piece in the language of their choice and hearing poetry, I do think it's better to have one project running rather than two projects not running. These ARE quite a bit of effort. It's fine now that lots of attention is focused on them, but what about in a month or two?

And, rather than waiting to hit 10 or 20 recordings, I like the set cataloguing time approach that we're sort of taking with Poetry in English these days. It means BCs and MCs can better plan effort, and readers know that there's a set time when their work will enter the catalogue and won't be depending on other people's submissions.

And finally, perhaps a more descriptive project summary would be good? If people could submit a 1 line description, in the language of the piece, that could be included and would help listeners pick out what to hear. Doesn't work so well with poetry ("this is a lovely poem about some flowers on a hill in spring") but perhaps with prose? Or, well, definitely non-fiction, assuming the title doesn't give the game away. Okay, actually, this bit may be a fairly rubbish idea. The rest is sensible, though.

[Piotrek81]

But I doubt whether anyone really downloads a whole collection and listens from start to finish right? I mean, all sections are in different language anyway.

Yeah, you're right... This only occured to me after I've posted
Still, sometimes, with lesser-known works or authors, it may not be immediately obvious whether the work is prose or fiction, so such "mixed" projects can be confusing. Some poems can be quite long, while some prose piece are very short.

And, rather than waiting to hit 10 or 20 recordings, I like the set cataloguing time approach that we're sort of taking with Poetry in English these days.

Sounds like a good idea. Plus, there are more and more non-English language/bilingual readers.

1 line description, in the language of the piece, that could be included and would help listeners pick out what to hear.

I don't think it's rubbish at all. Sounds very reasonable, especially with lesser-known works.

[Petra]

And finally, perhaps a more descriptive project summary would be good? If people could submit a 1 line description, in the language of the piece, that could be included and would help listeners pick out what to hear. Doesn't work so well with poetry ("this is a lovely poem about some flowers on a hill in spring") but perhaps with prose? Or, well, definitely non-fiction, assuming the title doesn't give the game away.

I agree, definitely not a rubbish idea! I don't know how this would be set up in the catalogue, but perhaps it would be easier to just have keywords, say poetry, fiction and nonfiction as compulsory categories and then one or a couple of optional keywords describing the actual content? It could look something like "Poetry: flowers, sonnet" or "Nonfiction: gardening advice". That way the risk of being spoilery is lesser, and it looks neat and takes less space... But again, I don't know how it would be set up so it may totally not work.

I would definitely be up for PLing the occasional section in one of the languages I know (though most of them appear to have their own collection projects) and I've actually come across texts recently that made me think I should go look this project up, but not yet got so far, so it would be perfect to start it up!

[annise]

The one line description woould be good - more work but more interesting than the normal summary "A collection of 10 works in the public domain by LibriVox Volunteers" . Maybe people could be asked to post it as they posted the contribution.

Anne

[Hokuspokus]

Multilingual Anything is great!
Why have two slow going collections when we can have one quicker instead. People pick and choose from collections anyway, more so from multilingual collections.

Only problem is the dislike for poetry or prose in some listeners. Cori's suggestion is good solution for that. I tried this "one sentence summary" for German Prose for a while. The readers didn't like it very much, but what if it was only Title, poem (short story/non-fiction/essay/...) by author? One could even add the translator and live and death dates here, if known.

The number of sections in a collection is a balance between the amount of work and the time it needs to fill up. 20 sections from a collection can be the same work as 40 sections from a group project. More than 20 is no fun cataloging in my opinion. On the other hand it makes not much sense to catalog 4 or 5 sections every 2 month.
My suggestion: When it goes slow, wait a little while longer until there are at least 10 section, when it goes fast, catalog after 20 sections.

[Leni]

I BC/MCd the prose one, and, as much as people seemed excited and interested in it when it started, it ran from October 2010 to February 2012 - which is why I never started the second one. It seems there aren't enough people interested in recording short prose pieces in other languages, simply. The poetry one seems to be much more successful, so I'd say we should stick to it.

[lezer]

At least there seems to be an interest in another multilingual project.

From the suggestions above I distill:

• - both prose & poetry will be accepted, as long as a work fits within 1 section [while we realise that probably most entries will be very short poetry sections]
  - experiment with having something about the entries in the summary on the catalog page, perhaps very brief [we'll have to see how this works out]
  - have around 10-20 entries per collection [if the collection stalls very long for some reason, perhaps consider closing it after a number of months so that readers & listeners don't have to wait too long]
  - hopefully there will be enough prooflisteners [and April may be interested in helping out in coordinating? - keep my fingers crossed - ]

OK - I'll probably set something up this evening or tomorrow. Want to make it as efficient as possible, so will try to choose a good scheme for naming the files etc.

Thanks, all - any further suggestions or help welcome.

Anna