- Project Gutenberg
Infobox_Library
library_name = Project Gutenberg
library_
location =
established =1971
num_branches =
collection_size = Over Num PG books
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budget =
director =Michael S. Hart
num_employees =
website = [http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page http://www.gutenberg.org]Project Gutenberg, abbreviated as PG, is a volunteer effort to
digitize , archive and distributecultural works. Founded in1971 byMichael S. Hart , it is the oldestdigital library . Most of the items in its collection are the full texts ofpublic domain book s. The project tries to make these as free as possible, in long-lasting, open formats that can be used on almost any computer. As of December 2007, Project Gutenberg claimed over Num PG books items in its collection. Project Gutenberg is affiliated with many projects that are independent organizations which share the same ideals, and have been given permission to use the "Project Gutenberg" trademark.Wherever possible, the releases are available in plain text, but other formats are included, such as
HTML . Most releases are in theEnglish language , but many non-English works are also available. There are multiple affiliated projects that are providing additional content, including regional and language-specific works. Project Gutenberg is also closely affiliated withDistributed Proofreaders , an internet-based community for proofreading scanned texts.History
Project Gutenberg was started by Michael Hart in 1971. Hart, a student at the University of Illinois, obtained access to a
Xerox Sigma V mainframe computer in the university's Materials Research Lab. Through friendly operators, he received an account with a virtually unlimited amount of computer time; its value at that time has since been variously estimated at $100,000 or $100,000,000.cite web
first=Michael S. | last=Hart | authorlink=Michael S. Hart
url=http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:The_History_and_Philosophy_of_Project_Gutenberg_by_Michael_Hart
title=Gutenberg:The History and Philosophy of Project Gutenberg
month=August | year=1992
accessdate=2006-12-05] Hart has said he wanted to "give back" this gift by doing something that could be considered to be of great value. His initial goal was to make the 10,000 most consulted books available to the public at little or no charge, and to do so by the end of the 20th century. [cite book
author=Day, B. H.; Wortman, W. A. | year=2000
title=Literature in English: A Guide for Librarians in the Digital Age
pages=p. 170
publisher=Association of College and Research Libraries
location=Chicago | isbn=0838980813 ]This particular computer was one of the 15 nodes on the
computer network that would become theInternet . Hart believed that computers would one day be accessible to the general public and decided to make works of literature available in electronic form for free. He used a copy of theUnited States Declaration of Independence in his backpack, and this became the first Project Gutenberge-text .He named the project afterJohannes Gutenberg , the fifteenth century German printer who propelled themovable type printing press revolution.By the mid-1990s, Hart was running Project Gutenberg from
Illinois Benedictine College . More volunteers had joined the effort. All of the text was entered manually up until 1989 whenimage scanner s andoptical character recognition software improved and became more widely available, which madebook scanning more feasible. [cite news
first=Vauhini | last=Vara
title=Project Gutenberg Fears No Google
publisher=Wall Street Journal
date=December 5, 2005
url=http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB113415403113218620-U_OqLOmApoaSvNpy5SjNwvhpW5w_20061209.html
accessdate=2007-08-15 ] Hart later came to an arrangement withCarnegie Mellon University , which agreed to administer Project Gutenberg's finances. As the volume of e-texts increased, volunteers began to take over the project's day-to-day operations that Hart had run.Pietro Di Miceli, an Italian volunteer, developed and administered the first Project Gutenberg website and started the development of the Project online Catalog. In his ten years in this role (1994–2004), the Project web pages won a number of awards, often being featured in "best of the Web" listings, and contributing to the project's popularity. [cite web
date=June 8, 2006
url=http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Credits
title=Gutenberg:Credits
publisher=Project Gutenberg
accessdate=2007-08-15 ]Recent developments
In 2000, a non-profit corporation, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, Inc. was chartered in
Mississippi to handle the project's legal needs. Donations to it are tax-deductible. Long-time Project Gutenberg volunteerGregory Newby became the foundation's first CEO.Charles Franks also foundedDistributed Proofreaders (DP) in 2000, which allowed the proofreading of scanned texts to be distributed among many volunteers over the Internet. This effort greatly increased the number and variety of texts being added to Project Gutenberg, as well as making it easier for new volunteers to start contributing. DP became officially affiliated with Project Gutenberg in 2002. [cite web
author=Staff | month=August | year=2007
url=http://www.pgdp.net/c/faq/dpf.php
title=The Distributed Proofreaders Foundation
publisher=Distributed proofreaders
accessdate=2007-08-10 ]As of 2007 , the 10,000+ DP-contributed books comprised almost half of the nearly Num PG books books in Project Gutenberg.Starting in 2004, an improved online catalog made Project Gutenberg content easier to browse, access and
hyperlink . Project Gutenberg is now hosted byibiblio at theUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill .cope of collection
As of|December 2007, Project Gutenberg claimed over Num PG books items in its collection, with an average of over fifty new
e-book s being added each week. [According to [http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX-2006.txt gutindex-2006] , there were 1,653 new Project Gutenberg items posted in the first 33 weeks of 2006. This averages out to 50.09 per week. This does not include additions to affiliated projects.] These are primarily works ofliterature from the Western cultural tradition. In addition to literature such as novels, poetry, short stories and drama, Project Gutenberg also hascookbook s,reference work s and issues of periodicals. [For a listing of the categorized books, see: cite web
author=Staff | date=April 28, 2007
url=http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Category:Bookshelf
title=Category:Bookshelf | publisher=Project Gutenberg
accessdate=2007-08-18 ] The Project Gutenberg collection also has a few non-text items such as audio files and music notation files.Most releases are in English, but there are also significant numbers in many other languages. As of|July 2008, the non-English languages most represented are: French, German, Finnish, Dutch, Chinese, and Portuguese.cite web
last=Thomas | first=Jeffrey | date=July 20, 2007
url=http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2007&m=July&x=200707201511311CJsamohT0.6146356
title=Project Gutenberg Digital Library Seeks To Spur Literacy
publisher=U.S. Department of State, Bureau of International Information Programs
accessdate=2007-08-20 ]Whenever possible, Gutenberg releases are available in plain text, mainly using
US-ASCII character encoding but frequently extended toISO-8859-1 . Besides being copyright-free, the requirement for a Latin-text version of the release has been a criterion of Michael Hart's since the founding of Project Gutenberg, as he believes this is the format most likely to be readable in the extended future. The text is wrapped at 65-70 characters and paragraphs are separated by a double-line break. Although this makes the release available to anybody with a text-reader, a drawback of this format is the lack of markup and the resulting relatively bland appearance. [cite web
last=Boumphrey | first=Frank | month=July | year=2000
url=http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue1/gutenberg/
title=European Literature and Project Gutenberg
publisher=Cultivate Interactive
accessdate= 2007-08-15 ]Other formats may be released as well when submitted by volunteers. The most common non-ASCII format is
HTML , which allows markup and illustrations to be included. Some project members and users have requested more advanced formats, believing them to be much easier to read. But some formats that are not easily editable, such as PDF, are generally not considered to fit in with the goals of Project Gutenberg (although a few have been added to the collection). For years, there has been discussion of using some type ofXML , although progress on that has been slow.Fact|date=August 2007Ideals
Michael Hart said in 2004, "The mission of Project Gutenberg is simple: 'To encourage the creation and distribution of ebooks.'" [cite web
first=Michael S. | last=Hart
url=http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Project_Gutenberg_Mission_Statement_by_Michael_Hart
title=Gutenberg Mission Statement by Michael Hart
date=October 23, 2004 | publisher=Project Gutenberg
accessdate=2007-08-15 ] [Project Gutenberg calls its products "ebooks," and that term is used here. The corresponding Wikipedia term ise-texts .] His goal is, "to provide as many e-books in as many formats as possible for the entire world to read in as many languages as possible." Likewise, a project slogan is to "break down the bars of ignorance and illiteracy" [cite web
url=http://www.pg-news.org/nl_archives/2003/pgweekly_2003_12_10_part_2.txt
title=The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter
date=December 10, 2003 | publisher=Project Gutenberg
accessdate=2008-06-08 ] , because its volunteers aim to continue spreading publicliteracy and appreciation for the literary heritage just as public libraries began to do in the late 19th century. [cite web
last=Perry | first=Ruth | year=2007
url=http://www.mla.org/resources/documents/rep_primaryrecords/repview_records/primary_records10
title=Postscript about the Public Libraries
publisher=Modern Language Association
accessdate=2007-08-20 ] [cite web
last=Lorenzen | first=Michael | year=2002
url=http://www.michaellorenzen.com/carnegie.html
title=Deconstructing the Philanthropic Library: The Sociological Reasons Behind Andrew Carnegie's Millions to Libraries
publisher=Modern Language Association
accessdate=2007-08-20 ]Project Gutenberg is intentionally decentralized. For example, there is no selection policy dictating what texts to add. Instead, individual volunteers work on what they are interested in, or have available. The Project Gutenberg collection is intended to preserve items for the long term, so they cannot be lost by any one localized accident. In an effort to ensure this, the entire collection is backed-up regularly and mirrored on servers in many different locations.
Copyright issues
Project Gutenberg is careful to verify the status of its ebooks according to U.S. copyright law. Material is added to the Project Gutenberg archive only after it has received a copyright clearance, and records of these clearances are saved for future reference. Unlike some other digital library projects, Project Gutenberg does not claim new copyright on titles it publishes. Instead, it encourages their free reproduction and distribution.
Most books in the Project Gutenberg collection are distributed as
public domain under U.S. copyright law. Thelicensing included with each ebook puts some restrictions on what can be done with the texts (such as distributing them in modified form, or for commercial purposes) as long as the Project Gutenbergtrademark is used. If the header is stripped and the trademark not used, then the public domain texts can be reused without any restrictions.There are also a few copyrighted texts that Project Gutenberg distributes with permission. These are subject to further restrictions as specified by the copyright holder.
Criticism
Project Gutenberg has been criticized for lack of scholarly rigor in its e-texts: for example, there is usually inadequate information about the edition used and often omission of original prefaces. However,
John Mark Ockerbloom of theUniversity of Pennsylvania noted that PG is responsive about addressing errors once they are identified, and the texts now include specific source edition citations. [cite book
author=Martha L. Brogan, Daphnée Rentfrow
year=2005
title=A Kaleidoscope of Digital American Literature
publisher=Digital Library Federation
location=New York
isbn=1933645288
oclc=61247191 ] In many cases the editions also are not the most current scholarly editions, for these later editions are not usually in the public domain.While the works in Project Gutenberg represent a valuable sample of publications that span several centuries, there are some issues of concern for linguistic analysis. Some content may have been modified by the transcriber because of editorial changes or corrections (such as to correct for obvious proofsetter or printing errors). The spelling may also have been modified to conform with current practices. This can mean that the works may be problematic when searching for older grammatical usage. Finally, the collected works can be weighted heavily towards certain authors (such as
Charles Dickens ), while others are barely represented. [cite book
first=Sebastian | last=Hoffmann | year=2005
title=Grammaticalization And English Complex Prepositions: A Corpus-based Study
edition=1st Edition | publisher=Routledge
isbn=0415360498
oclc=156424479 ]In March 2004, a new initiative was begun by Michael Hart and John S. Guagliardo [Executive director of the World eBook Library.] to provide low-cost intellectual properties. The initial name for this project was "Project Gutenberg 2" (PG II), which created controversy among PG volunteers because of the re-use of the project's trademarked name for a commercial venture.cite journal
last=Hane | first=Paula
title=Project Gutenberg Progresses
journal=Information Today
year=2004 | volume=21 | issue=5
url=http://www.infotoday.com/it/may04/hane1.shtml
accessdate=2007-08-20 ]Affiliated projects
All affiliated projects are independent organizations which share the same ideals, and have been given permission to use the "Project Gutenberg" trademark. They often have a particular national, or linguistic focus. [cite web
author=Staff | date =July 17, 2007
url=http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Partners,_Affiliates_and_Resources
title=Gutenberg:Partners, Affiliates and Resources
publisher=Project Gutenberg | accessdate=2007-08-20 ]List of affiliated projects
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Project Gutenberg Australia hosts many texts which are public domain according toAustralian copyright law , but still under copyright (or of uncertain status) in the United States, with a focus on Australian writers and books about Australia. [cite web
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*Projekt Gutenberg-DE claims copyright for its product and limits access to browsable web-versions of its texts. [cite web
author=Staff | year=1994
url=http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/
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*Project Gutenberg Consortia Center is an affiliate specializing in collections of collections. These do not have the editorial oversight or consistent formatting of the main Project Gutenberg. Thematic collections, as well as numerous languages, are featured. [cite web
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*PG-EU is a sister project which operates under the copyright law of theEuropean Union . One of its aims is to include as many languages as possible into Project Gutenberg. It operates inUnicode to ensure that all alphabets can be represented easily and correctly. [cite web
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*Project Gutenberg of the Philippines aims to "make as many books available to as many people as possible, with a special focus on the Philippines and Philippine languages". [cite web
author=Staff | url=http://www.gutenberg.ph/
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*Project Gutenberg Europe is a project run byProject Rastko inSerbia . It aims at being a Project Gutenberg for all of Europe, and has started to post its first projects in 2005. It is running theDistributed Proofreaders software to quickly produce etexts. [cite web
author=Staff | year=2005 | url=http://pge.rastko.net/
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publisher=EUnet Yugoslavia | accessdate=2007-08-20 ]
*Project Gutenberg Luxembourg publishes mostly, but not exclusively, books that are written in Luxembourgish. [cite web
last=Kirps | first=Jos | date=May 22, 2007
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*Projekti Lönnrot is a project started by Finnish Project Gutenberg volunteers which derives its name fromElias Lönnrot , who was a Finnishphilologist . [cite web
last=Riikonen
first=Tapio
date=February 28, 2005
url=http://www.lonnrot.net/
title=Projekti Lönnrot
publisher=
accessdate=2007-08-20]
*Project Gutenberg Canada . [cite web
url=http://www.gutenberg.ca/
title=Project Gutenberg Canada
accessdate=2007-08-20]See also
*
Project Runeberg
*Google Book Search
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*Wikisource
*List of digital library projects
*Librivox free online audio library, with many texts used from Project Gutenberg
*Aozora Bunko References
External links
* [http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page Official Project Gutenberg website]
* [http://www.pgdp.net/ Distributed Proofreaders] a worldwide group of volunteer editors that is now the main source of eBooks for Project Gutenberg
* (note that many of these have been renamed to Project Gutenberg for trademark concerns, and are not original with the Project)
* [http://www.pg-news.org/ Project Gutenberg News] - Official News Portal for Gutenberg.org. Includes the [http://www.pg-news.org/category/newsletterarchives/ Newsletter Archives] 1989-Present.
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