Volunteers outside the USA: Arthur Ransome died in 1967. His work is still protected by copyright in places, like Europe, where copyright is author's death plus 70 years, or Canada/Australia (author's death plus 50 years).
I was practically brought up on Arthur Ransome and at one time almost knew all his 'Swallows and Amazons' books by heart. Unfortunately none of those are PD but this early Ransome is, so here goes.
Arthur Ransome is best known for his ‘Swallows and Amazons’ series of children’s books. This is the only example of his fiction in the public domain. These stories are all from Russian folklore, some comparatively well-known, others less so. Ransome spent some years in Russia as a newspaper correspondent fir the ‘Daily News’ and the ‘Manchester Guardian’ and was peripherally involved in the revolution. In the late twenties he married Evgenia Shvelpina, Trotsky's secretary, retired from newspapers and started writing his children’s books. Quite a lad in fact. (which you'd never guess from his photograph in the Wikipedia artice) (Summary by AJM)
How to claim a part, and 'how it all works' here
To find a section to record, simply look at point 5. below at the sections. All the ones without names beside them are “up for grabs.” Click "Post reply" at the top left of the screen and tell us which section you’d like to read (include the section number from the left-most column in the reader list, please). Read points 6. to 8. below for what to do before, during and after your recording.
Is there a deadline?
Target completion date of this project: End December 2008 – but try to send your recordings as soon as you can. If you cannot do your section, for whatever reason, just let me know and it’ll go back to the pool. There’s no shame in this; we’re all volunteers and things happen.
Where do I find the text?
Source text (please only read from this text!): http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/16981 (WARNING - The chapter numbering is wrong)
Please claim sections (the numbers in the first column below)! If this is your first recording, please let me know under which name or pseudonym you'd like to appear in the LibriVox catalogue. We can also link to a personal website/blog.
DURING recording: Make sure you add this to the beginning and end of your recording: Start of recording (Intro)
"Chapter [number] of Old Peter's Russian Tales]. - This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit: librivox DOT org"
If you wish, say: "Recording by [your name]"
Say: "Old Peter's Russian Tales By Arthur Ransome. [Chapter]"
End of recording
At the end of the section, say:
“End of [Chapter]"
If you wish, say: "Recording by [your name], [city, your blog, podcast, web address]"
At the end of the book, say (in addition): "Old Peter's Russian Tales By Arthur Ransome."
Please leave 5 seconds silence at the end of your recording, or 10 seconds for files longer than 30 minutes!
Also, please remember to check this thread frequently for updates!
AFTER recording: Need noise-cleaning?
Listen to your file through headphones. If you can hear some constant background noise (hiss/buzz), you may want to clean it up a bit. The new (free) version 1.3.3. of Audacity (Mac/Win) has much improved noise-cleaning. See this LibriVox wiki page for a complete guide.
Save files as
128 kbps MP3 old_peters_russian_tales_##_ransome(all lower-case) where ## is your section number. (e.g. old_peters_russian_tales_01_ransome.mp3)
ID3 V2 tags
(To find out more about ID3 tags, go to our wiki: http://librivox.org/wiki/moin.cgi/WhatIsID3)
Add the following tags to your .mp3 file (how you do this depends on which software you use – if you are unsure about ID3 tags, send me a message). Please mind upper and lower case!
Title: ## - [Section title] e.g. 01 - The Tale Of The Silver Saucer And The Transparent Apple"
Artist: Arthur Ransome
Album: Old Peter's Russian Tales
Please ignore tags for Genre and Track Number - these will be filled in automatically at the cataloguing stage.
Transfer of files (completed recordings) Please always post in this forum thread when you've sent a file.
Also, post the length of the recording (file duration: mm:ss) together with the link.
Upload your file with the LibriVox Uploader (when your upload is complete, you will receive a link - please post it in this thread): http://upload.librivox.org
(If you have trouble reading the image above, please message an admin) You'll need to select the MC, which for this project is: jo - knotyouraveragejo
Is Kara MCing this for you? I see you have uploaded to her folder, but there aren't any MC initials on the project. If you do still need an MC, let me know and I'll set this up for you.
Yes please Jo! I originally intended this as a solo but decided not to read because of the copyright issue but just to BC instead which is when Kara dropped out.
I cant see any problem with BCing since if the reading all go up via the uploader I shant have 'handle' them at all.
They're jolly good stories and not too long so I hope they'll go well.
All setup. You just need to add the rest of the titles to the magic window. I've moved the first file over to my folder on the uploader to keep everything together and edited the link for you. I'll just shoot this over to Readers Wanted whenever you are ready.
richardgy wrote:Can I claim 01 - "THE TALE OF THE SILVER SAUCER AND THE TRANSPARENT APPLE" ?
You can indeed Richard. Thanks - I've entered you in the box.
I see this is your post No 1 so could you let me have a brief sample please - just to check the technical/hardware aspect of the recording - about 1 minute would do. Upload it using the uploader as decribed with jo's initials and a name like OPRT - test or something.
This is my first experience at this but I would like to claim 02 - Sadko if possible. I am a teacher and love to read to students. I notice that there are footnotes - are these to be read where they are placed or where they seem to naturally fit or not read at all?
Hi Jenny,
Lovely reading. Very yes please. I've marked it in the magic box.
re footnotes:
It makes no sense in its current position (presumably it came at the bottom of the page in the printed version) so either
Say "Footnote" where the [1] is in the second paragraph and read the footnote at that point. Or say "See Footnote" where the [1] is and then at the end of the story say "Footnote" and read it there.
Or my own preference would be to read it where the [1] is without saying "footnote" but in an 'asidey' kind of voice (If you know what I mean) - I think it interrupts the flow less.
Here is the URL for the chapter I just 'finished'. Actually since this is my first one, I am not sure how much I should do to it. I think that I may not have saved some small edits that I made after it was an mp3 file. I can hear myself take small breaths but when I tried to "silence" them it made clicking sounds. Also as I am listening to the link, I am hearing plosives or "bumps" that I did not hear originally. So I may need to read to redo it or edit it more carefully. Let me know. Jenny
