Sun, 06 Jul 2003 03:54:29 GMT

Happy Belated Birthday to Project Gutenberg.

Project Gutenberg's 32nd Birthday

“July 4th marks the 32nd anniversary of that day in 1971 when Michael Hart first sped an all-caps version of the Declaration of Independence to anyone and everyone then on what later became the web, thus founding Project Gutenberg. Thanks to an army of volunteers and the Distributed Proofreaders, this is the last year PG will have fewer than 10,000 titles. Strangely, Microsoft picked this dual anniversary of literacy and freedom to re-launch their Reader product, with three free bestsellers a week, if you activate the new version with Passport, sign a EULA, etc. Real reason for the upgrade might be that the DRM on MS's old Reader was cracked. If you're not into giving away data, or are running a system other than Windows, maybe you could take the time to tell a friend about free books online, or even help out by visiting the Distributed Proofers and editing one page per day.” [Slashdot]

So a happy belated birthday to PG, even while Darci Chapman quotes Jacek Artymiak discussing ebooks:

“Today's eBook efforts are missing the point. They make reading books harder, not easier. A book that cannot be read once the batteries run out or when you forget your password is pretty useless to me. Technology ought to make our lives easier, after all.”

Amen and hallelujah.

[The Shifted Librarian]

i did a bit of distributed proofing on this yesterday, its fun. try it. do a page a day or two or three..