General Questions
Transcribing Standards
Edition Information
Store Information
Q. Can I donate money to the DCL?
A. Yes you can. I will have a paypal account setup here.
Q. I have an old book that I would like to send in for the cause, may I?
A. Yes, if you have an old book or set of books that you would like to donate please contact me to make arrangements.
I can pay for shipping if needed.
Q. I have a hard drive or [insert some other computer component here]. Would you like it?
A. If you have fairly new and working parts that you would like to send I would be happy to have them. Hard drives are appreciated because the raw scans for the books are getting rather large. A small book scan can be about a gigabyte. Add in the back ups that I keep, and it gets to be a rather large archive. Other parts accepted too.
I am not interested in old antiques. Old computers, 200 different keyboards, 75 mice, monochrome monitor's, etc. I am not a junk dealer. Just parts that are usable please.
Q. I am looking for a certain book.
A. I usually do not have to time to take requests. However, please email it to me. I try to keep a list of requests so that if I do find the files or think the book is valuable enough for me to scan, I will try to commit some time for it. If not maybe someone else will see your request and scan the book for everyone.
Q. Why do you not have this book: [insert some title here].
A. Maybe it is not in the public domain, maybe I have not had time to scan it. Maybe I am not aware of the book. Maybe I hate the book. Send me a request about it and I will see what I can do.
Q. Where are the books on [insert certain religion or subject here].
A. If a religion or subject is new there is not going to be any books in the public domain on them. A book about the history of computers will not be on this site because, well, it really has nothing to do with this site, but also there are no public domain books on the subject.
The same goes for some religions, (i.e. Scientology, Urantia, World Wide Church of God.). Because they have come into being with in the last 80 to 90 years there is probably no public domain texts available.
Another possibility is because I have not found the time or do not know about them yet.
It is also possible that a member of that religion made me mad in the past so I am refusing to post content about them. I kid, I kid.
Q: I am the copyright holder of a text you have on your site and want it removed.
A. I am sorry that I have infringed on your copyrights. I have tried to make sure that all of the files are in the public domain. However, I am only human. If you can prove that you are the owner of the text I will remove it promptly.
I do keep copies of all of the title pages of books that I scan to prove that they are in the public domain.
Q. I thought that this was a Christian site. I have found a lot of objectionable material. I want it removed immediately!
A. Just because a file is located on this site it does not mean that its presence is an endorsement of its particular views. The DCL is a scholarly site that developed out of my need to have a variety of texts readily available. You should think of it as a library. Sometimes researchers need to read material that they do not agree with so that they can understand the subject matter, (i.e. creation vs. evolution debates, cult and occult studies and expository, etc.). Just as you would not go to a library and read any book you pick up as the literal truth, I encourage every one here to be cautious of any text located on this site, even if it is from a Christian author. Remember, the Holy Bible is the utmost authority for a Christian and everything should be tested against it. God gave you a brain, so quit making a mockery of him and start using it.
Q. But, some of the books are racist! or sexist! or [insert some other social evil here]!
A. I am not in the business of rewriting history. We must remember where we have been so we can proceed in a correct manner down the road of life. If I were to remove every file that was offensive, it would be akin to trying to say it never happened. This is as bad as the people who deign the Holocaust never happened. The Holocaust happened, slavery happened, persecutions happened, wars have happened, people said there was no God or a morality standard that were are accountable for then lived like it. We must remember that this stuff happened and strive not to fall in to these evils again.
Q. BUT. . .
A. If you have not got it yet, maybe you should not use the site. Simple as that. I have more important things to do than to listen to incessant whining.
Q. Please link to my site!
A. I do not really have time to keep up with links to here and there and every which way. Pretty soon a visitor is about as lost as Alice was wondering down the rabbit hole. If I have linked to a site it is because I have found it helpful. But you can still ask, I just might link to it.
I will not link to sites that promote heresy, and since this is my website, we are going to go by my definition of heresy. If you have any practically innovative views of Christianity, such as doctrines that have not been taught by the Church in the last two millennia, (Jesus is not God, the KJV is the only Bible we should read, the Trinity is untrue, etc.) please do not even waste my time.
If you are offended that I am calling your view heresy, please do not bother writing me about it. I do not have to to listen to your whining. Any whining will be deleted promptly and will probably not get a reply.
Q. Please join my webring.
A. No. I distain webrings. They usually are never up to date and contain many dead links. I do not even like the hassle any more.
Q. May I link to your site? What are your conditions for linking to the DCL?
A. You may link to any document for any purpose. They are all freely available with no restrictions. However, I do ask that you try not to imbed images on the DCL into your web pages, as this increases greatly increases traffic to the DCL. Instead, download the image and then save it to your server, all images are in the public domain unless stated.
Also, be wary of deep linking, sometimes I have to move books around or rename them to keep with my current organizing conventions. I try to keep this to a minimum but it happens. I would advise that you periodically check your links to make sure that nothing has changed.
Q. Can I use files on your web site for mine?
A. Yes, you may use any file, for any purpose, unless it is stated other wise. Mark 10:8b "freely ye received, freely give" (ASV).
Most of the files are in the public domain, however, some may be copyrighted. If a file is copyrighted it will be marked as so to keep your from accidentally using it. If you use a copyrighted file without permission, especially in a commercial project, you could get into serious legal trouble.
Q. Can I use your files for my personal profit, such as selling them in PDF format or on a CD-ROM.
A. Like I said, they are freely available for all, for any purpose. Just make sure that the file is in the public domain or you could get into legal trouble.
Even though I do not mind if you use these files for commercial purposes, I do ask to be mindful of where you got them. Countless hours of my time have been poured into this site. If everyone were to use these files in commercial products, pretty soon I would have no revenue to help keep the site alive.
Also, another thing that really cooks my goose. If you take these files to use and then you claim a copyright on them, there had better be a really good reason for it. I spend hours scanning, OCR'ing the text and then proofreading it in several passes. If you are going to copy and paste the text in to some other format and then claim that the "mark-up" or a few of the error's that you correct entitles you to exclusive distribution of your version and a new copyright, I've got news for you. Quit being a PRICK. Not only does your "copyrighted" version lack substantial creativity to warrant a new copyright as stated by law, it is a plain asinine thing to do. These file are in the public domain for everyone.
The last thing that I ask is that if you use these files in a substantial project, and it is not to much trouble for you, please send me a copy of the project. This is only a request on my part because I would like to know what good use the files are being put to. At the very least, please inform me of the project that you are working on.
Q. Why are there not any translations of of this or that in to this Russian, Chinese, Japanese, etc.
A. I am a native English speaker, I can not translate any of these documents. Speaking only English, I also find it easier to scan primarily English works. If your need for a certain work is great, maybe you can scan off a book in your language. If you do so, please sent it to me so that every on can benefit from it.
Q. Why are there not any zip archives of the books to download.
A. That would take a lot of space and bandwidth. In the future there will probably be some links to the files on a peer2peer network. I am thinking about using the eDonkey2000 network to help distribute files. Also, there will be a CD-ROM to buy at a minimal cost.
Q. Why don't you have a forum for us to discuss topics.
A. Because I am convinced that the web is only used by those three years old and younger. Translation: Even though most of us are adults using this site, I know that no one will act like like an adult. I know that someone will ask a simple question about which Bible translation that they should get because they are a new Christian and that they want something easy to read. And Lo and Behold, a King James Onlyist will try to convince everyone they are going to hell in a hand basket faster than Adolf Hitler himself for reading a different Bible than the KJV. In short, I do not have the time or patience to deal with stupid people.