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Digitizing FSI | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Malcolm Triglot Retired Moderator Senior Member Korea, South Joined 7315 days ago 500 posts - 515 votes  5 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Korean Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Latin | Message 89 of 237 21 April 2005 at 3:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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Re: Audioforum, etc.
Courses from Audioforum, Multilingual Books, Barron's, and Spoken Language Services are all commercial releases. I don't know anything about Multilingua Inc., but I'd assume it's the same. If you guys find Audioforum releases without copyrights, I see no problem with digitizing them for personal use. However, this website will not support or link to the digitizations of these commercial releases, nor will I share them on my FTP. The only place where you can buy the non-commercial releases is the NTIS/NAC: http://www.ntis.gov/products/nac/browse.asp?loc=4-4-1 If you buy a course off ebay or abebooks, chances are it's a commercial release. If someone wants to collect and digitize these courses, I think that's fine as long as you're sure that there are no copyright notices in the books or on the tapes. However, you would have to find a way of sharing these courses independently from this site. Fortunately, many libraries in North America carry the original FSI releases. Re: Digitization in China Converting cassettes is easy and doesn't really require any work. You just put the tape in, start recording, then go do something else until it's done. I personally see no reason to get the Chinese to do this for us. Many of us have the equipment to do this and are willing to convert other people's tapes for free. The books, on the other hand, are difficult and annoying to convert. They are also easier to ship and travel with than cassettes. Onebir: Of course, getting the Chinese to convert the tapes makes sense in your situation since you're going to China anyway. May I ask how many cassettes your Turkish course is? What's the sound quality like? Re: Raising money to buy FSI courses Before considering this, I think every member interested in participating in this project should check their city's library network. It would be a shame to spend hundreds of dollars on a course when one of us has access to it at a local library. Perhaps we should first determine which courses are the most important, then we can see if any of us have access to them. I'm interested in: FSI/DLI Standard Chinese FSI Spanish FSI French FSI German FSI Modern Written Arabic FSI Cantonese 1 + 2 FSI Japanese FSI Korean Of the above, I only have access to original versions of Standard Chinese (when Francois sends me the tapes) and Korean (at the library), as well as some of the books for the other courses. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| blackr00t Diglot Groupie United States Joined 7202 days ago 40 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Russian, French | Message 90 of 237 21 April 2005 at 7:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have access to FSI Hebrew and FSI Greek at my local library... they're cassettes too and I'm still not quite sure on how these are converted into a digital format. Anyhow, that adds two more to the list.
I also agree with the order presented by Malcolm. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jradetzky Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom geocities.com/jradet Joined 7207 days ago 521 posts - 485 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, GermanB1 | Message 91 of 237 21 April 2005 at 7:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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I know how to convert cassettes into digital format. It is very simple. You only need an audio cable with two input plugs and some software like MusicMatch. PM me and I'll teach you how to carry out the process. BTW I fancy FSI Greek... Edited by jradetzky on 21 April 2005 at 7:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| onebir Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 7163 days ago 487 posts - 503 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin | Message 92 of 237 22 April 2005 at 4:39am | IP Logged | ||
I think it's probably easier to ship the books without attracting duty etc. We just need someone with a scanner + OCR software in a country where labour costs are low, who can dole out the work. Doesn't have to be China. Given the location of the libraries with the courses, Mexico would be better. One problem - is OCR software international enough to recognise non-english characters, accents etc? We can't ship library books - so I guess we'd need to buy originals (checking they're non-copyright)/ ship photcopies - but maybe that defeats the object. I've only got Turkish Basic course I (from my library) at the moment - 12 cassettes. The book is definitely non-copyright (a US government printing office offprint). The cassettes are marked Audio Forum. They bear no copyright notice, and correspond exactly to the (non-copyright) book. So they can't have had the 'substantial' alterations necessary to justify their own copyright. But anyway, the first few have been used quite heavily - sound quality's degraded. I've ordered Turkish Basic course I & II though - bookseller said it looked like the cassettes were almost unused. Have to see whether that's an NTIS original. Edited by onebir on 23 April 2005 at 5:44am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| palito Diglot Newbie United States Joined 7207 days ago 18 posts - 18 votes Speaks: French, English | Message 93 of 237 22 April 2005 at 11:24am | IP Logged | ||
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i just checked in my local library: these are the FSI courses available
Swahili Dari Burmese Sinhala hebrew finnish bulgarian Edited by palito on 22 April 2005 at 11:24am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| onebir Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 7163 days ago 487 posts - 503 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin | Message 94 of 237 23 April 2005 at 6:06am | IP Logged | ||
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Incidentally, what about the FSI "out and about" CD roms? Available in Greek, Thai, Mandarin and Russian...
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jerikl Newbie Joined 7176 days ago 19 posts - 20 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Portuguese | Message 95 of 237 05 May 2005 at 12:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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Any more progress on this? I have checked my local library (Dallas, TX)
and there are quite a few FSI programs, but they are all Barron's! Is NTIS *really* the only place to buy these? For $280 a pop or so, that's expensive... especially when you can usually get a Barron's course for about $50 on Amazon. Here are the courses in my library district: Cantonese Basic Course -- Boyle, Elizabeth Latimore(15 tapes) (1976) -- I think that this one is an original FSI. Mastering Portuguese -- Ulsh, Jack Lee (1985) Igbo Basic Course -- Swift, Lloyd Balderston,, Ahaghotu, Amako., Ugorji, Chidiadi. 1990 (just a book) -- AudioForum is publisher? Mastering Italian -- Zappala, Stephen (1985) Mastering French -- Cossard, Monique (1985) Mastering French II -- Cossard, Monique (1992) Mastering French -- Cossard, Monique., Salazar, Robert J. (2003) (12 cds) Mastering Spanish -- Stockwell, Robert P (1985) Mastering Spanish II -- Stockwell, Robert P (1992) Mastering Spanish -- Stockwell, Robert P., Bowen, J. Donald, Silva Fuenzalida, Ismael. Mastering German -- Barron's (1985) Mastering German II -- Brown, Samuel A (1992) Mastering Greek -- Obolensky, Serge (1988) Mastering Hebrew -- Reif, Joseph A (1988) Mastering Japanese -- Jorden, Eleanor Harz (8 tapes) Tapes were all (I believe) 90 minutes a piece. Almost all of them came with course books as well (unless otherwise noted). The "Mastering" comes from the Barron's titles, I believe these are all based off the "Basic" courses, or "Programmatic" or whatever from FSI (I'm still a little confused, because I see both in some cases for the same language). I'd really like to help and get this thing started, but I obviously can't without uncopyrighted sources that I can work with! I wonder if you can request these materials through the FOIA and if it would be any less expensive? I'm assuming not since the NTIS offers them and they are a government agency, but it's worth a try, right? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| onebir Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 7163 days ago 487 posts - 503 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin | Message 96 of 237 05 May 2005 at 12:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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Audioforum's another FSI reprinter - as far as I can tell it doesn't actually modify anything but still puts a copyright symbol on the tapes of more recent courses. (At least it did on the FSI Turkish course I got via Abebooks.)
Barrons actually alter the courses slightly, so they have some claim to copyright. But I think it might be worth writing to Audioforum and asking them if we can reproduce their courses digitally - and if not, given that the bulk of FSI courses are in the public domain - exactly which the original bits provide the basis fortheir claim to copyright. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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