[COMPLETE] Mardi, Vol. I, by Herman Melville - availle

Solo or group recordings that are finished and fully available for listeners
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Ecologicalhumanist
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Joined: June 10th, 2011, 10:42 am

Post by Ecologicalhumanist »

Mardi: and a Voyage Thither, Vol I, by Herman Melville (1819-1891) .

This project is now complete. All files can be found on - and downloaded from - our catalog page:
https://librivox.org/mardi-vol-1-by-herman-melville/

"Not long ago, having published two narratives of voyages in the Pacific, which, in many quarters, were received with incredulity, the thought occurred to me, of indeed writing a romance of Polynesian adventure, and publishing it as such; to see whether, the fiction might not, possibly, be received for a verity: in some degree the reverse of my previous experience...This thought was the germ of others, which have resulted in Mardi" (Herman Melville, Preface).
  • Text source (only read from this text!): http://www.archive.org/details/mardiandvoyageth01melvrich
  • Type of proof-listening required: Standard

    Please don't download or listen to files belonging to projects in process (unless you are the BC or PL). Our servers are not set up to handle the greater volume of traffic. Please wait until the project has been completed. Thanks!

    Magic Window:



    BC Admin
  • The reader will record the following at the beginning and end of each file: [/b]
    No more than 0.5 to 1 second of silence at the beginning of the recording!

    Start of recording (Intro)
    • ""Chapter [number] of Mardi: and a voyage thither, Volume I, by Herman Melville. - This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit: librivox DOT org"
    • "Mardi: a voyage thither, Volume I, by Herman Melville. [Chapter number, title]"


    For the second and all subsequent sections, you may optionally use the shortened form of this intro disclaimer:
    • "Chapter [number] of Mardi: a voyage thither, Volume I, by Herman Melville. This LibriVox recording is in the Public Domain."
    • If you wish, say:
      "Recording by [your name], [city, your blog, podcast, web address]"
    • Only if applicable, say:
      "[Chapter title]"
  • At the end of the section, say:
    End of [Chapter]"
  • At the end of the book, say (in addition):
    "End of Mardi: a voyage thither, Volume I, by Herman Melville. "


There should be 5 seconds silence at the end of the recording, or 10 seconds for files longer than 30 minutes.

[*]Example filename
mardi_001_melville_128kb.mp3

[*]Instructions for 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://librivox.org/login/uploader
    Image

    (If you have trouble reading the image above, please message an admin)
    You'll need to select an MC, which for this project is: availle - Availle
  • If this doesn't work, or you have questions, please check our How To Send Your Recording wiki page.
[/list]
Last edited by Ecologicalhumanist on August 27th, 2011, 10:45 am, edited 2 times in total.
Availle
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Post by Availle »

Okay, somebody has to be the party-pooper here, so I'll sacrifice myself... :wink:

1) Half of the template is not filled out properly. You must indicate how the intro/outro of the book should be read and the filename. Also please link to the main page for the book on gutenberg, so people can choose their own preferred file format to read/pl.

2) Do you really mean this to be a group project?
I see you are pretty new here on librivox, with only two sections submitted so far, and we usually prefer our BC's (Book Coordinators) to have more experience, because essentially it's their project and they have to be here on a daily basis for a very long time, and deal with all sorts of problems that may come up. You can take this quiz here to see if you're up to it: http://wiki.librivox.org/index.php/BC_Readiness_Quiz

The whole book - both volumes together has about 200000 words, that's 25 hours of recording, and it's not a well known book, so it may take a year or even more to get it done as a group project.

3) In case you just used the wrong template and you're planning to read this as a solo, the length of the recording is still an issue. For a soloist, 25 hours is a LOT to read, it will take about 100 hours of work to do. Note that many readers experience a loss of focus after about 30 minutes of recording. The good news is that most of the chapters seem to fit into that timespan.

In any case, I would suggest to do only Volume 1 for the beginning and see how it's going.

Let me know if you want to go through with it.
Cheers, Ava.
Resident witch of LibriVox, channelling
Granny Weatherwax: "I ain't Nice."

--
AvailleAudio.com
Ecologicalhumanist
Posts: 69
Joined: June 10th, 2011, 10:42 am

Post by Ecologicalhumanist »

Hi,

No worries about pointing out the problems--I appreciate it. I have reasons for wanting to start this while still a newbie at Librivox, but for now I'll try to answer these concerns as best I can:

1) I will look again at the template and try to fill it out properly, adding the intro/outro information and the links to the main page. My apologies.

2) I wasn't sure about making it a group project--I wanted to be inclusive, but perhaps it will be more realistic to tackle it solo. This will, obviously, be a long term project, and I can see how coordinating would require more of a commitment than recording it all myself, at my own pace.

3) It was the template I intended, but upon consideration I will try to launch it again as a solo project, with the appropriate template. I do realize it is not a well-known book, but that is one of the reasons I feel like it should be recorded...Mardi was the subject of one of my dissertation chapters, so I do have professional as well as personal reasons for investing the (yes, daunting) time required.

So yes, I still intend to go through with it, and will take your advice about beginning with Vol. I.

I've already encountered one or two mistakes in the gutenberg version (comparing it to the Northwestern-Newberry edition) so if you have advice on that, too, I'd be glad to hear it.

Thanks for your help and patience!
Availle
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Post by Availle »

If you want to tackle it as a solo, I'm happy to take it on as MC. Usually we're much less reluctant this way, because - as you say yourself - it's only YOU involved and not a number of other - potentially hapless - newbies.

There's nothing we can do about "errors" in any text we read, as our policy is "read as written", no additions/omissions are allowed (unless it's an obvious typo). Please keep that in mind! Another source for our books is archive.org, which may have the other edition you are talking about. google books is also a good source although some of their books may not be accessible for people outside the US - which may be a problem for your DPL.

You can simply edit your post above with the correct info, or post a new thread. Either way is fine.
Cheers, Ava.
Resident witch of LibriVox, channelling
Granny Weatherwax: "I ain't Nice."

--
AvailleAudio.com
Ecologicalhumanist
Posts: 69
Joined: June 10th, 2011, 10:42 am

Post by Ecologicalhumanist »

Thanks so much, and that makes complete sense.

The main error I noticed was that "yarns" was "yams" :D --something like that I'll probably just read it like I know it's meant to be. I'll see if the archive.org text is better.

The post above should be edited within the next 24 hours, using the solo project template. Thanks again!
Ecologicalhumanist
Posts: 69
Joined: June 10th, 2011, 10:42 am

Post by Ecologicalhumanist »

The template is updated; hopefully I haven't taken too many liberties with it. Archive.org did have a good pdf of the original edition (through an open library page), although the .txt is still dubious--like the gutenberg version, it seems like it might have been run through some kind of auto-scanner at some point. Probably the best option for reading and PLing, though.
Availle--should I add you as the MC myself? Any other problems with the template?
Availle
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Post by Availle »

Looks good!

I have changed the reading link to archive.org directly, as all the links from open library just point there. Also, the filename may only be lower case, so I changed that too.

Everything else is ready to go. I will pm you with your login and a few tips on how to handle the MW. In a few days I will move us over to "Going Solo", but hopefully we'll attract a DPL before that.

Good luck!
Cheers, Ava.
Resident witch of LibriVox, channelling
Granny Weatherwax: "I ain't Nice."

--
AvailleAudio.com
Ecologicalhumanist
Posts: 69
Joined: June 10th, 2011, 10:42 am

Post by Ecologicalhumanist »

The Preface and first chapter are uploaded. Here are the lengths and links:

000 Preface-- 1:15
http://upload.librivox.org/share/uploads/ava/mardi_000_melville.mp3
001 Chapter 1--30:43
http://upload.librivox.org/share/uploads/ava/mardi_001_melville.mp3

More soon! Hope they are okay!
Availle
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Post by Availle »

Looks good!

You don't have to post the filenames and durations here, just putting them straight into the MW is fine. You still have to post, however, otherwise noone would know that anything has happened. (Yeah, I know, it's complicated... :roll: )

You may want to add something to the MW after the time that says "PL needed" or "PL ok" so that can keep track whether the file is ready for catalog or not.

And with this, we're moving over to Going Solo...

The preface is PL ok, btw :wink:
Cheers, Ava.
Resident witch of LibriVox, channelling
Granny Weatherwax: "I ain't Nice."

--
AvailleAudio.com
Ecologicalhumanist
Posts: 69
Joined: June 10th, 2011, 10:42 am

Post by Ecologicalhumanist »

Copy that.

Nice to have the project in its new "going solo" home in the forums. Cheers!
Ecologicalhumanist
Posts: 69
Joined: June 10th, 2011, 10:42 am

Post by Ecologicalhumanist »

For anyone who might be interested:

As part of the Digital Public Library of America's call for beta sprint proposals, I made a video about Mardi, and its potential for crowd-sourced annotation and evolution. It can be found here:

http://youtu.be/ftdjYKJexhw
Ecologicalhumanist
Posts: 69
Joined: June 10th, 2011, 10:42 am

Post by Ecologicalhumanist »

Chapters 2 and 3 are up.
Availle
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Joined: August 1st, 2009, 11:30 pm
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Post by Availle »

Hi,

I'm in a cleaning spree of all my projects, and I see that you haven't been posting for a while. We ask from our soloists to check in every month, whether they recorded anything or not, to keep us up to date. Please let me know if you still want to continue with this...

Thanks!
Cheers, Ava.
Resident witch of LibriVox, channelling
Granny Weatherwax: "I ain't Nice."

--
AvailleAudio.com
Ecologicalhumanist
Posts: 69
Joined: June 10th, 2011, 10:42 am

Post by Ecologicalhumanist »

Hi Availle,

Yes, I'm still going on this project, just slowed due to other work. Chapters 4 and 5 are there now, more to come soon.
Availle
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Joined: August 1st, 2009, 11:30 pm
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Post by Availle »

Great! And here I was, slightly worried... :clap:

I think I should go and advertise for a PLer to listen to your files :wink:
Cheers, Ava.
Resident witch of LibriVox, channelling
Granny Weatherwax: "I ain't Nice."

--
AvailleAudio.com
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