Project Gutenberg Request For Support - Details

By Michael Hart

May 18 2001

The Work of Project Gutenberg is Permanent.

The major difference between the products of Project Gutenberg and those of other non-profit organizations such as PBS, NPR, etc., is that even now it it's 30th year, our original Etext of the U. S. Declaration of Independence is downloaded by more people every year than in any previous year of the history of the Internet. When you support Project Gutenberg, your support is seen permanently. It is not like a museum or library, you won't come for a visit and NOT see your effect right there for everyone to see and have. . . .

You won't find PBS showing all their shows from 30 years ago. . . but the Project Gutenberg Etexts are there forever. We update format types from time to time, and correct errors, but when your family reads Alice in Wonderland now, we want you to know you will be able to find it again generations down the road. We already have people getting married and starting families of their own, who read Alice from Project Gutenberg when they weren't even teenagers yet. . . .

This is quite different from the way most Internet sites exist as a day to day phenomenon, whereas we are planning on Project Gutenberg Etexts being available as long as there IS an Internet.

When you buy CDROMs of most Etexts you get something that requires a certain operating system, and even a certain version of it, usually one that likely will be incompatible with the next version or the one after that. . .and then you have to go out and buy another version. That's where the big difference lies between Project Gutenberg Etext and nearly every other kind you can get. . .you can still copy books from Project Gutenberg onto your floppies, carry them to nearly any computer, and read them with minimal effort, no installation needed.

The Work of Project Gutenberg is Free.

Because no installation is needed, these Etexts ARE free. . .there is no particular brand of hardware or software you need to buy to read a Project Gutenberg Etext. . .you don't even have to download a browser . . .whether it is free or not. . . . Virtually every computer there is in the world can read these Etexts just the way it comes, and that is the point of our existence. . . .

We want EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE, EVERYWHEN to have free access to such a library of classics in EVERY LANGUAGE.

Thousands of Project Gutenberg Etexts are available, and no one is ever charged a penny by Project Gutenberg for them. All the Etexts are done by volunteers. All the sites are run by volunteers.

The Work of Project Gutenberg is Available.

The Project Gutenberg Etexts are available from servers on all continents. We are continually expanding the number of servers, and eventually hope to have servers not just on every continent, but in every region, and then in every country. We are now working on sites in Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, and several others. With 3 billion computers already around the world, and used ones available at garage sales for $5, pretty much anyone who really wants to read Etexts and has electricity can do it. I should add that we are aware that 60% of the world's population has never made a phone call. . .which is one reason we promote the giving away of our Etexts on disks. . .we were receiving letters from around the world from people who had received our Etexts on disk years before the Internet actually circled the globe.

Our Etexts are actually available for download from several satellites.

The Work of Project Gutenberg is Useful.

Looking up something in any of our books takes less time that it would to walk over to your own bookcase and find it in your own book. Quoting the material is even faster. The Complete Works of Shakespeare could be used for a search that would take literally seconds. We also have very complete editions of Charles Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson, so complete that they have been listed in library journals as the most complete available to the public in the entire world. [I don't know if there are privately owned collections that have more. But the whole point is that anyone can add our entire collection to theirs with no effort.]

We make our Etexts available in plain formats that virtually all programs can read, quote, edit, search, etc. Thus our readers use a wider variety of computers and programs, at their own discretion, and budget, to read a wide variety of Etexts. This is a very important aspect of our work. . . to make Etext available to everyone. . .and to let them read it in their own favorite programs, in their own favorite fonts, to search with their own favorite search engines, and to copy anywhere, any time.

The Work of Project Gutenberg is Enlightening.

My hope is that the work of Project Gutenberg will finally allow access to the information and literature of the entire world to the entire world.

"Of The People, By The People, For The People". . .says it pretty well.

Hopefully you will include yourself as one of "These People."

Project Gutenberg Is Growing

We are officially producing 50 Etexts per month at this time, and unofficially we are producing even more. Last year we averaged about 75 per month for the second half of the year, and we are doing the same this year. At this rate, we will soon cross the boundary of 1,000 Etexts produced in a single year.

Not only is Project Gutenberg growing, but our audience is growing as well, and even more quickly. Our Sites Coordinator just told me that half the people reading our books are new over the past 18 months. This is not uncommon among brand new enterprises, but when you realize this is our 30th year, such growth is truly. . .no hyperbole. . . . .

PHENOMENAL!

Here is a brief history of our growth rate:

We should reach approximately 3,000 Etexts by the official end of 2001, but since we are about a year ahead of schedule, this will likely take place in the next few months. [hee hee, when I started writing this a month ago, I had no idea I might be announcing #3000 in THIS message!!!]

Here is how we got there:

1 per year in 1971-1979 completed our first 9 Etexts which were mostly a "History of Western Democracy"

From 1980-1990 we completed our first Bible and Shakespeare, but due to the new copyright extensions, the Shakespeare is still not able to be released. Thus our total was 10 Etexts. [We counted Shakespeare and The Bible as 1 Etext each.]

  • 1 per month in 1991
  • 2 per month in 1992
  • 4 per month in 1993
  • 8 per month in 1994 We reached a total of 100 Etexts
  • 16 per month in 1995
  • 32 per month in 1996
  • 32 per month in 1997 We reached a total of 1,000 Etexts
  • 36 per month in 1998
  • 36 per month in 1999 We reached a total of 2,000 Etexts
  • 36 per month in 2000
  • 40 per month in 2001 for the first half of the year then
  • 50 per month in 2001 for the second half of the year
  • We reached a total of 3,000 Etext with the last of the 2001 Etexts.
  • 50 per month in 2002
  • 100 per month in 2003 Should bring us back to schedule

We will end the "Official Year of 2002" with 3,600 Etexts!!! This should happen on July 4, 2001, we are that far ahead of this schedule. . . .

[Now that we can officially say we have "thousands" of these Etexts online, we should prepare to create an institution of support for Project Gutenberg that will hopefully carry this project into, and at least part of the way through, the next millennium. . .your help could be invaluable. . .more below]

We Have Made It Much Easier To Volunteer!!

[There is a brand new set of web pages for our volunteers so please help us with any suggestions and/or corrections, your help in making this page serve our volunteers is appreciated more than you might imagine. . .this page could become a big foundation for our future volunteers; we are ALL volunteers]

Have We Given Away A Trillion Dollars Worth Of Etext Yet??!!

Yes, if we manage to get the average one of our 3,500 Etexts to 1.67% of the world's population, using a nominal value of $2.86 as a street value of the average one of our books: as our population has passed 6 billion around the official date of release of our Etext #2000. In fact, we are ~all the way from using the $5 nominal value, thru the $4 value, that was the result of our posting Etext #2500. . .and then we passed $3 mark at Etext #3333 as it takes an ever increasing number to bring the cost down another dollar . . .this time it will take 833 more Etexts. . .last time it only took 500 more. . .next time it will take 1666 to get it from $3 to $2. . .and then 5000 more to get nominal price of a book down to $1 and still give away $1 trillion in Etexts.

OK. . .enough math. . .!!!

;-)

The Purpose of Project Gutenberg

The major purpose of Project Gutenberg is to encourage great and small efforts towards the creation and distribution of a library of Etexts for unlimited distribution worldwide. Our goal is to encourage the creation and distribution of 10,000 Etexts by the end of 2001. . .obviously we have to revise it some time this year. . .as we will perhaps get to #4000.

This is a goal we may have already accomplished, though many of the 10,000 files are still very much Limited Distribution items, and we are working to get them posted in more places, on more sites, for greater and greater public access. These will hopefully all be posted on Project Gutenberg sites some time in the not too distant future, we are discussing this a lot with the other Etext makers. Creating a liaison between all the Etexts makers is one of our major goals right now.

There are currently over 16,000 Etexts listed in the indices of the Internet Public Library, and, as usually, between 20- 25% of them are from Project Gutenberg. We are growing just as fast as the total Etext production of the world, but this could be accelerated quite a bit if we could do copyright on more of the Etexts out there of "unknown origin." We should raise money to hire a copyright lawyer for this!

If we are going to continue on past our first goal of 10,000 Etexts, we are going to need some Big Time public relations help, and some Big Time fundraising. . .here's why. . . .

Getting the Etexts to twice as many people is just as important as creating twice as many Etexts. . .but without MAJOR publicity it is not likely to happen. . .we constantly get messages from readers who tell us they have been LOOKING for Etexts for years and just at that present time FINALLY FOUND US. . . . That means we cannot get to a major part of our audience with the kind of publicity we have, we need something more. . . . For example, we were the first in an entirely new column: "People To Watch" in the November 8th edition of TIME magazine, but we have received less than a dozen emails per that article. . .what we really need to do is get on Oprah Winfrey, and hopefully add something to her book club. Those of you on AOL, perhaps you could email the show and request they invite us. . . !

We should undoubtedly also try the other talk shows, and "magazine" shows, etc. All the press we receive is from them contacting us, I have had no luck "generating" publicity. . .which seems to be easy, for those who have the knack. . .it's just not MY knack. . .help!!!

Running group of 1,500 volunteers to generate 10,000 Etexts has been something that IS a knack I have. . .and it hasn't cost a very large amount of money to do it. . .otherwise you wouldn't know that we exist. . .but running a group of 10,000 volunteers to create the 1,000,000 Etext that are possible in the NEXT 10 years, is NOT easy . . .even for someone such as myself. . .it will require more phone lines and calls than I can afford. . .and more email than I can do, on my own, so we either need volunteers to help coordinate, or, the possibility looms that we should actually HIRE people. . . .

When I first started Project Gutenberg in 1971, I was sure I should be able to find someone else to replace me, as it did not cost real money or take real time to run. . .but for the last 10 years it has taken just about all the time I have, including what I would need a lot more of to have a personal life. . .and I would LIKE to have an expectation that Project Gutenberg would survive at least 10 years, after I am gone, and hopefully 100, and if I really dream, 1,000!!!

So. . .if you are willing and able to help us with these or in some related manner, PLEASE LET ME KNOW. . . .

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