User:Paxrei/Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, and to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of books in the public domain. 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 20 May 2020, Project Gutenberg has reached 62,108 items in its collection of free eBooks.

The releases are available in plain text but other formats, such as HTML, PDF, EPUB, MOBI, and Plucker are included wherever possible. Most releases are in the English language,but many non-English works are also available. There are multiple affiliated projects that provide additional content, including region- and language-specific works. Project Gutenberg is closely affiliated with Distributed Proofreaders, an Internet-based community for proofreading scanned texts.

History

Michael S. Hart (left) and Gregory Newby (right) of Project Gutenberg, 2006

Michael S. Hart began Project Gutenberg in 1971 with the digitization of the United States Declaration of Independence. 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 the time has since been variously estimated at $100,000 or $100,000,000. Hart explained he wanted to "give back" this gift by doing something one could consider 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 by the end of the 20th century.