[KS] Koreanstudies Digest, Vol 103, Issue 24

Thu Jan 19 12:22:24 EST 2012

Hi everybody,

Re: DB of Korean Classics.

I didn't consider that it might be illegal to download the facsimiles;
I guess this means I should stop trying.

I just wish that scans of the good editions used for the searchable
text-versions that I actually can access on the Mac (although the menu
for browsing through the contents of a work, or the different books by
a single author, doesn't work properly) were available as open access,
in the same way as, say, the Asami collection of rare Korean books at
Berkeley is available in high resolution, open access color scans at
archive.org.

I was thinking that manuscripts and prints from two hundred years ago
would not be protected by copyright.

Best regards,

On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 12:00 PM,  <koreanstudies-request at koreaweb.ws> wrote:
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> <<------------ KoreanStudies mailing list DIGEST ------------>>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
>   1. Position: Oberlin College - MELLON POST-DOCTORAL FELLOW IN
>      KOREAN/EAST ASIAN ARCHEOLOGY AND HISTORY (Sheila Miyoshi Jager)
>   2. Re: DB of Korean Classics (McCann, David)
>   3. Re: DB of Korean Classics (Frank Hoffmann)
>   4. Re: DB of Korean Classics (Charles Muller)
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Sheila Miyoshi Jager <sheila.jager at oberlin.edu>
> To: Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws
> Cc:
> Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 09:58:32 -0500
> Subject: [KS] Position: Oberlin College - MELLON POST-DOCTORAL FELLOW IN KOREAN/EAST ASIAN ARCHEOLOGY AND HISTORY
>
> MELLON POST-DOCTORAL FELLOW IN KOREAN/EAST ASIAN ARCHEOLOGY AND HISTORY
>
>
>
> The East Asian Studies and Anthropology Departments at Oberlin College invites applications for a non-continuing faculty position as a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in the College of Arts and Sciences. Appointment to this position will be for a term of two years beginning Fall 2012 and will carry the rank of Visiting Assistant Professor. The position is supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and by a challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
>
>
>
> The incumbent will teach in the general area of Korean/East Asian archeology and history of any period from 2nd c. BCE - 900 CE (pre-Three Kingdoms period to Unified Silla).   The area of specialization is open. We encourage candidates to apply whose research interests also focus on international disputes over historical interpretation, the popularization of the ancient past in popular culture as well the politicization of history. Qualified candidates should have substantial experience of research and scholarship in Korean and East Asian archeology as well as full command of the regional historical debates related to these more contemporary issues. Total course load is two courses per academic year. Further information is available at: http://www.oberlin.edu/eastasianstudies  .
>
>
>
> To be assured of consideration, applicants should submit a cover letter, a curriculum vitae, graduate transcripts, a writing sample, title and brief summary of a proposed course; and three letters of reference to:  Sheila Miyoshi Jager, Chair, East Asian Studies Program 50 North Professor Street Peters Hall 316 Oberlin Ohio 44074. Review of the applications will begin on January 23, 2012, and will continue until the position is filled.
>
>
>
> Oberlin College is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer committed to creating an institutional environment free from discrimination and harassment based on race, color, sex, marital status, religion, creed, national origin, disability, age, military or veteran status, sexual orientation, family relationship to an employee of Oberlin College, and gender identity and expression.
>
>
>
> Oberlin was the first coeducational institution to grant bachelor's degrees to women and historically has been a leader in the education of African-Americans; the college was also among the first to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation.  In that spirit, we are particularly interested in receiving applications from individuals who would contribute to the diversity of our faculty in all respects.
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: "McCann, David" <dmccann at fas.harvard.edu>
> To: Korean Studies Discussion List <koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
> Cc:
> Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:14:01 -0500
> Subject: Re: [KS] DB of Korean Classics
> "set up their site so that..." probably assumes more intent than was
> present in the decision to go with software that does not allow easy
> access to Mac users.  It's a problem I dare say we have all
> encountered here or there in the Korean studies world.  Macs don't
> always speak the language of PC.
>
> And 'webmasters'?  Really?
>
> Sounds like a good plot for a movie!
>
> David McCann
>
>
> On Jan 17, 2012, at 11:41 PM, Charles Muller wrote:
>
>> Mårten Söderblom Saarela wrote:
>>
>>> As a Mac user, I'm constantly frustrated by the DB of Korean
>>> Classics.
>>> Does anybody know of a way to either harvest all the material on the
>>> site (text and images; I've tried SiteSucker but it didn't work) and
>>> build an private database, or some other place where one can download
>>> the facsimiles of the munjip?
>>
>> While the idea of "harvesting all the material" from a site using
>> such apps as SiteSucker may sound attractive to end users, I can
>> tell you that as a maintainer of a few large data sites, the usage
>> of such applications on our sites causes considerable headaches,
>> clogging up our servers, making it less useful to honest users.
>>
>> If the webmasters of the Korean Classics set up their site so that
>> you can't download the whole thing en masse, they probably had a
>> good reason to do so. I suggest that you acknowledge their right to
>> manage their site as-is.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Chuck
>> -------------------
>>
>> A. Charles Muller
>>
>> University of Tokyo
>> Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, Faculty of Letters
>> Center for Evolving Humanities
>> 7-3-1 Hongō, Bunkyō-ku
>> Tokyo 113-8654, Japan
>>
>> Office: 03-5841-3735
>>
>> Web Site: Resources for East Asian Language and Thought
>> http://www.acmuller.net
>>
>> <acmuller[at]jj.em-net.ne.jp>
>>
>> Mobile Phone: 090-9310-1787
>>
>> Twitter @acmuller4
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Frank Hoffmann <hoffmann at koreaweb.ws>
> To: Korean Studies Discussion List <koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
> Cc:
> Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:21:44 -0800
> Subject: Re: [KS] DB of Korean Classics
> The posting did not include any link, did not include any detailed problem description whatsoever other than stating that there are problems using some online sources on a Mac. (What OS version exactly, all? Trying to do what? Reading texts seems not a problem, given you talk about http://db.itkc.or.kr.)
>
> The first step should in such a case *always* be to contact the site owner and to describe exactly, and with an example, what the problem is. Instead it is being asked, on this Korean studies list (not this hacker discussion list), how to "harvest **all** the material" that a Korean institution in many years of collaborative labor put up there. Most obviously, the Internet is about sharing knowledge, but not so much about stealing :)
>
> Technical note:
> As far as I can see -- please explain if there are other functions -- one can freely go to any munjip or sillok text and then have that displayed, paragraph by paragraph, or page by page, in those two sources I looked into. Texts are being blended in in TEXT format from a database (as the title of that entire site already suggests) -- that is not any scanned image of a text, not PDF or similar format either. A database consists of plain TEXT format. (Well, there are now also image data bases, but this one seems to be a TEXT database.) You therefore cannot "copy" a full text, as this text does not exist as such full text--the text of a document only exist as a cut-up version, whereby each paragraph is located in separate data fields. Just imagine an Excel spread sheet, and then think of all paragraphs of text being put into different entry fields there ... and later you click on e.g. B 137 and you get one of those paragraphs being displayed in a window in your webbrowser, while the data base itself is in the background, is not even located in the same folder (maybe even on a different server for security) as the website you look at. This is then exactly what the website owners wanted, they wanted to protect their work, while at the same time allowing LIMITED public access, just not allow to download the whole package and then possibly do something else with it (e.g. put it on some other website).
>
> *If* there are ways to download entire munjip or sillok in one file--I did not see that, but as I said, I am usually not working with classical texts; please point out where and how this is supposed to be done. Technically, this would then be different files than the ones you see while reading through a text paragraph by paragraph or page by page. If there is such a function, then maybe the site is using a Korean altered version of PDF (by now long outdated and completely unnecessary, in a technical sense, and this would likely require Microsoft's "ActiveX" which is not available for the Mac, and it was also discontinued by Microsoft years ago). But I would only know after having seen what they have there, and I didn't see anything. Can you post a description of a SAMPLE search or download attempt, so others can see what problems you have?
>
>
> Regards,
> Frank Hoffmann
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Charles Muller <cmuller-lst at jj.em-net.ne.jp>
> To: Korean Studies Discussion List <koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
> Cc:
> Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:49:20 +0900
> Subject: Re: [KS] DB of Korean Classics
> On 01/19/2012 12:14 AM, McCann, David wrote:
>
>> "set up their site so that..." probably assumes more intent than was
>> present in the decision to go with software that does not allow easy
>> access to Mac users.  It's a problem I dare say we have all
>> encountered here or there in the Korean studies world.  Macs don't
>> always speak the language of PC.
>
>
> The original poster directly requested information on how to harvest all the texts on the site, and not on how to make it more user-friendly for the Mac. My response was to that, as apparently least a few were able to glean.
>
>> And 'webmasters'?  Really?
>> Sounds like a good plot for a movie!
>
>
> "Webmaster" is a standard term for a person principally responsible for the maintenance of a large web site (one can readily look this up on the Web for confirmation). Nothing exotic about it, worthy of making a movie about. If this bends the imagination too much, then I suppose I could use the more bland "web administrator" henceforth.
>
> Thanks much to Frank Hoffmann for seeing my point and laying out the non-issues in detail.
>
> Regards,
>
> Chuck
>
> -------------------
>
> A. Charles Muller
>
> University of Tokyo
> Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, Faculty of Letters
> Center for Evolving Humanities
> 7-3-1 Hongō, Bunkyō-ku
> Tokyo 113-8654, Japan
>
> Office: 03-5841-3735
>
> Web Site: Resources for East Asian Language and Thought
> http://www.acmuller.net
>
> <acmuller[at]jj.em-net.ne.jp>
>
> Mobile Phone: 090-9310-1787
>
> Twitter @acmuller4
>
>
>
>
>

-- 
Mårten Söderblom Saarela
PhD Student
East Asian Studies Department
Princeton University

Email: msoderbl at princeton.edu