|
One of my little projects is the systematic photographing and OCR'ing of the (in)famous 1930s book "The Night Climbers of Cambridge". This marvellous little book, written by a group of Cambridge students at the time, describes their adventures on the rooftops of Cambridge at night and has become rather a sought-after rare book. Since I know many Cambridge climbers who would love to read the book, I'm making it available online.
The intention of this little escapade is not to flout copyright just for the hell of it: I believe that anyone who is prepared to pay rare book rates for a "real" copy made from (long) dead trees are hardly likely to be sated by the availability of the content in an electronic, much less elegantly formatted form. My photographs of the photographs (if you get my drift) are clearly lacking and this is, at least partially, on purpose: you'll get the idea from this page but if you're a real afficionado then nothing but the original will do. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think the Night Climbers themselves would like their work to become available to all, now that the price of content redistribution is practically zero (when you discount my time spent on it, anyway!). I hear word from a relative of the author that this assumption is probably not so far from the truth.
Without further ado, here's the HTML version: it's all there now, but may be a bit rough and ready in places. Please let me know if you find any errors or areas for improvement! And thanks to everyone who helped me to make it work.