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Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter
by Michael S. Hart 21 Jan '10

21 Jan '10

Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter REMINDER: We still need a probate lawyer!!! A famous author wants to will us his entire works!!! The Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter--Jan. 21, 2010 eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since 1971 35 Months to The End of the World Via Mayan Calendaring on December 21, 2012 [some now saying October 11, 2011] Leaving 2 years 11 months, 11 1/3 seasons or 35 months. Not to worry, I will still make long range predictions, such as that there will be affordable petabytes [2021], and enough eBooks to fill an entire petabyte around the same time. HEADLINE NEWS BIG TROUBLE IN TERABYTEVILLE! BIG PORTABLE POCKET USB DRIVE RECALL! As I mentioned last month, the new pocket USB terabytes came out last month, but apparently there has been some huge problem with this, and I not only have not managed to BUY one of these, I haven't even managed to SEE one! I did get in touch with the Western Digital techies and they did admit, after a little delay, that the drive is no longer for sale, and I'm hardly sure it ever ways on more than a very few days. This would explain why ALL of the 89 hits I got just in the week before had vanished when I wrote about this. The results: Not only is the $200 terabyte pocket USB drive not out, but apparently this has also driven up the price of the other larger pocket drives, though apparently not quite all of them, as I have seen the smaller ones at the old prices still on the shelf. I'm not going to name names on places to buy, but the more upscale places are quick to push their prices up and slow to bring them down and the cheaper places seem to be more consistent on these. APPLE SEEMS READY TO ANNOUNCE EREADER/TABLET If you are an Apple watcher you know that they are very secretive about their announcements, yet this time they have made it pretty obvious that something is coming in the next week and should be on the market in March. Invitations have gone out for a major press conference, and Apple seems to have ordered massive quanties of the parts required to build such a gizmo. However, unless it really has outrageous bells/whistles on the order of iPods and iPhones it probably won't see the same kind of reception, as Apple does not sell what we call "computers" for under $999, and I'm betting the price will be a factor. However, the iPhone trendiness overcame this hurdle when they were $600 and required a contract commitment, to boot, so you never know. In Our Own News Bin Project Gutenberg should be releasing the 26,00th eBook in English about the time you are reading this: http://www.gutenberg.org FARTHER INTO THE FUTURE As predicted: a year from now, in 2011, New York Times will start charging a flat fee to anyone who reads more than a minimum number of articles at nytimes.com Watch out as the entire "Information Age" becomes quite literally "The New Digital Divide" as everything costs, as much as the market will bear. As always with such things, no details were available-- not the price, not the minimal free number, or and kind of guarantee that either number will not change sooner, rather than later, after it all begins. U.S. COPYRIGHT EXTENSIONS Can anything be done to stop the next U.S. extension? or If not stop them, at least publicize them a little? Suggestions are more than welcome. I should add that this is probably a losing battle even if it looks as if we are winning. Here's why: When the last Australian Copyright Act was discussed in Parliament, they passed a resolution stating they would NOT extend copyrights. Really. However, just three years later, under economic warfare from, shall we just say, outside sources, they crumbled to the pressure and gave in. The Canadian Parliament is currently in that position-- and while some tell me they have enough signatures from those against any extensions, I will bet you lunch that they, too, crumble before it is over. I would gladly lose every one of those wagers!!! Further Information As you may already know, any time the copyrights in the characters Winnie the Pooh [1926], or The Mouse [1928], start coming close to expiration The U.S. Congress will be sure to start a very quiet frenzy of copyright bills that are designed to go into effect before anything can happen to those two copyrights. As I understand it, Disney(R) made a huge lobby effort, successful, to create the 1976 U.S. Copyright Act; paid as a result an additional $200 million for the right to another 20 years of Winnie the Pooh, and still made the fabled laughing trip to the bank as a result, since the effective date of 1978. As a result I have to imagine their sales of The Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, Piglet, etc., must have been predicted to be so terribly large as to devour Avatar's gross. Given that next bill passed right in the middle of what must have been the busiest day in Congress for the last few decades, the impeachment of President Clinton, this means we should expect something of equal secrecy quite soon, as the current copyright extension runs out 2018. Usually they would make an effort to pass the new one a session or two early, such as in 2016, but given that a snag or two has hit before, we should probably look out starting in 2015, though it will be hard to see. Why? Even during the election just before the last extension I went to ask televised press conference questions on a new U.S. Copyright Act I had heard about, but candidate responses were uniform. . ."I know nothing." I would have to expect that even if the big anchors ask the same question in 2015 they will get that answer. Or non-answer. >From what I have heard there is an ever larger movement to keep everything copyrighted permanently, and to make all media as pay-per-view as possible, to the points of making all broadcast television pay-per-view on a first viewing premise [except public stations]. We are very likely to see a dissolving out boundaries-- cable products showing up on network television and the opposite direction as well. What else CAN we expect when Comcast cable has been the allowed buyer of NBC? If you think programming won't leak over: Consider what happened when Disney took over ABC. Not only did Disney flood ABC with their own programmed output, but they killed off the best of all cartoons. Anyone remember Reboot? I can put you in touch with many copyright experts, and I fear that all of them underestimate the power working to make copyright permanent, in spite of the fact words "limited time" are the U.s. Constitution's description. However, the U.s. Supreme Court decided that limited is really unlimited in "Eldred v Ashcroft." Older News Welcome To Our Newest PG Mirror. . .In Africa!!! Continent: Africa Nation: Namibia Location: Windhoek Provider: Polytechnic of Namibia Url: http://gutenberg.polytechnic.edu.na Url: http://ftp.polytechnic.edu.na/pub/gutenberg The mirror is updated thrice daily. PROJECT GUTENBERG TAG CLOUD We invite interested persons to visit a tag cloud visualization and search system at www.bookdownloadlibrary.com This is updated weekly, from the Project Gutenberg catalog. iPHONE SOUGHT Project Gutenberg is seeking donation of an iPhone, and perhaps other modern cell phones and eBook readers. We are working on some new versions of content at www.gutenberg.org These need to work, including in Europe , but without having a paid cell phone plan. In other words, they need to be unlocked or unlockable. We are particularly interested in devices that have built-in WiFi, so they can access content at www.gutenberg.org without using the cellular network at all. Project Gutenberg is a charitable 501(c)(3) organization in the US. Our All Time Hottest Requests!!!!!!! FLASH RAM I am looking for the earliest flash RAM possible. The ideal piece around which to center this collection is one of the 8 megabyte USBs. The very earliest were PCMCIA cards, such as used for the Poqet computer, etc. The earliest USB flash drives were DisgoDizgo, M-Systems and these were OEMed by IBM, HP, etc. They are particular in a recognizable fashion because their snapon connectors resemble the connectors of jigsaw puzzles. We received two examples of RAM actually labeled "Flash," for the H-P 95 pocket DOS machine from 1991, and a sample of Fairchild bubble memory, as well, from down under. Thank you, Mate! POWERPOINT We need someone who can do PowerPoint illustrations. One in particular, building a 3-D box of 1,000 dominoes. Additional Newsletter Services In addition, we will provide the PG Canada Newsletter and totals from PG of Australia, Europe, PrePrints, etc. These totals do NOT include 75,000+ at http://www.gutenberg.cc Where there are eBooks representing over 100 languages. The Project Gutenberg Statistical Report [As of about noon Central Daylight Time] Various totals from the ~30,000 at http://www.gutenberg.org and our other Project Gutenberg Sites Week up to the 21st: day | cnt ----------------+----- Thu 2010-01-14 | 8 Fri 2010-01-15 | 13 Sat 2010-01-16 | 16 Sun 2010-01-17 | 8 Mon 2010-01-18 | 12 Tue 2010-01-19 | 5 Wed 2010-01-20 | 11 Previous Month day | cnt ----------------+----- Mon 2009-12-14 | 11 Tue 2009-12-15 | 4 Wed 2009-12-16 | 4 Thu 2009-12-17 | 10 Fri 2009-12-18 | 7 Sat 2009-12-19 | 7 Sun 2009-12-20 | 9 Previous month: day | cnt ----------------+----- Sat 2009-11-14 | 6 Sun 2009-11-15 | 4 Mon 2009-11-16 | 6 Tue 2009-11-17 | 9 Wed 2009-11-18 | 3 Thu 2009-11-19 | 6 Fri 2009-11-20 | 5 Thanks to Marcello Perathoner! /// Here are the current language totals for languages with 200 or more eBooks. Grand total for today: 30935 25995 English en 1547 French fr 628 German de 518 Finnish fi 459 Dutch nl 405 Chinese zh 391 Portuguese pt 274 Spanish es 230 Italian it Compared to last month: Grand total 25757 English en 1520 French fr 618 German de 515 Finnish fi 453 Dutch nl 405 Chinese zh 376 Portuguese pt 270 Spanish es 220 Italian it Compared to previous month's: Grand total for today: 30399 25587 English en 1498 French fr 614 German de 515 Finnish fi 451 Dutch nl 404 Chinese zh 371 Portuguese pt 268 Spanish es 218 Italian it Previous increases: +214 +205 +254 +281 +294 +287 All Reported Languges Not counting PrePrints, Canada, Australia, PG Europe Thanks to Greg Newby! /// And From Project Gutenberg Sites Worldwide 30,935 up from 30,613 up 322 PG General Automated Count 1,834 up from 1,830 up 4 PG of Australia 680 up from 664 up 16 PG of Europe 2,008 -- 2,008 up 0 PG PrePrints, Reserved [42?] 462 up from 436 up 26 PG of Canada Posted #400 on October 10 July: 14 (Title 349 to 362) August: 16 (Titles 363 to 378) September: 17 (Titles 379 to 395) October: 13 (Titles 396 to 408) November: 9 [up to November 21] December: 19[up to December 21] ====== 35,919 up from 35,551 up 368 Last month: 35,551 up 240 [Not including Canada's illustrations] 35,311 up 235 [Including correcting above estimate by 2] Note There are perhaps 100 eBooks not listed here that are already in circulation from Project Gutenberg. Note PG Canada includes English, French, and Italian. /// Here is how we ended 2009 day | cnt ----------------+----- Wed 2009-12-30 | 9 Thu 2009-12-31 | 12 Fri 2010-01-01 | 6 Sat 2010-01-02 | 10 Sun 2010-01-03 | 2 Mon 2010-01-04 | 21 Tue 2010-01-05 | 5 Weekly Total 65 Grand total for today: 30761 from automated in house counter 25866 English en 1531 French fr 625 German de 517 Finnish fi 455 Dutch nl 405 Chinese zh 384 Portuguese pt 270 Spanish es 225 Italian it etc. 30,761 Up 3,145 From 27,616 PG General Automated Count 1,830 Up 104 From 1,726 Project Gutenberg of Australia 675 Up 121 From 554 Project Gutenberg of Europe 468 Up 243 From 225 Project Gutenberg of Canada [Estimated] 2,008 DN 423 From 2,431 PrePrints [Subtracted 307 Chinese eBooks] ====== ====== 35,742 Up 3,190 From 32,552 Grand Total [Counting subtractions] 9.825 eBooks Per Day 68.773 eBooks Per Week 297.850 eBooks Per Month /// Here is how we ended 2008 27,616 PG General Automated Count 1,726 Project Gutenberg of Australia 554 Project Gutenberg of Europe 225 Project Gutenberg of Canada [Estimated] [202 up to December, no current report] 2,431 PrePrints [Counting the 307 Chinese eBooks +111] ====== ====== 32,552 Grand Total [Counting those PrePrints] Here is how we ended 2007 The combined PG projects had produced a total of 26,161 titles. The most number of books posted... ...in one day was 65 on the 26th December ...in one week was 151 in Week 18 (week ending 9th May) ...in one month was 477 in November We averaged 338 per month [Over 4,000 for the year] 78 per week 11.13 per day 99 titles were newly REposted to the new filing system, bringing us almost to the 2,000 mark. Here is a small selection of project milestones; TOTAL Original Project Gutenberg eBooks equals about the number of books in the average U.S. public library 32,500 on 20082121 [Counting the 307 Chinese Preprints] [And presuming 3 after official count] 32,000 on Calculating 31,500 on 20081021 [not an error, 1,777 PrePrints] 30,000 on 20081021 29,500 on 20080919 29,000 ~~ Calculating 28,500 ~~ Calculating 28,000 ~~ 20080516 27,500 on 20080405 27,000 ~~ 20080229 26,500 on 20080126 26,000 on 20071224 25,000 on 20071012 24,000 on 20070710 23,000 on 20070415 PG-AU 1,700 on 20081010 1,600 on 20080208 1,500 on 20070407 PG Canada 175 on 20080930 100 on 20080325 110 on 20080417 /// Many thanks to all who have helped us reach our 39th year! Michael S. Hart Founder Project Gutenberg

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Project Gutenberg Newsletter, Yearly Report
by Michael S. Hart 06 Jan '10

06 Jan '10

Project Gutenberg Ends One Year And Starts Another Noon, January 6, 2010, is the end of our calendar production year number 39 and the beginning of our 40th year, though our 40 years of calendar time won't be complete until July 5, 2011. This date is due to our previous calendar being a weekly one running from a Wednesday noon to the next Wednesday noon. Once someone else has taken over the Newsletters, they are welcome to change this to an alternate date such as midnight January 1, but I was always awake and working at noon, and able to send out weekly newsletters so I just did what worked on that schedule. Hot Requests We need lawyers in the following fields: Probate Contract Copyright We also need people who can help make our web pages better for an ever increasing number of people surfing in on cellphones, and in different languages. We will give you all you need to design and implement your own Project Gutenberg web pages. Who knows, it is possible you could start a whole famous web page design career. Public Domain Day The first day of the years is Public Domain Day, when we list the works that would have gone into the public domain that day if not for the most recent two copyright extensions [but don't forget we have had more extensions from the original 14 years]. Notable items that would be public domain now: Fahrenheit 451 Walt Disney's Peter Pan The First James Bond Book Early books by Saul Bellow, Arthur Miller, Leon Uris, Jas Baldwin Watson and Crick's Original "Nature" Article on DNA Salinger's Nine Stories >From Here To Eternity Asimov's Second Foundation Early works of Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, E.E. Smith, van Vogt War of the Worlds Julius Caesar [James Mason, Marlon Brando, etc.] Before these last two major copyright extensions renewals were of legal necessity to double the length of copyright terms, and most works were never renewed: 15% of all copyrights, 8% of books had never been renewed, meaning the vast majority of everything under copyright before 1982 would now be public domain. Read more about this at: http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/pre1976 and related web pages. These are great articles by a great copyright lawyer. Milestones Of The Year In 2009 we saw our 35,000th internally produced eBook go out, and our 25,000 in English, our 1,500th in French, 600th in German and 500th in Finnish. We also saw Dutch and Chinese pass 400 eBooks. We still need to find ways to do more in Spanish and Portuguese. These 35,000+ eBooks representing over 50 languages are at: http://www.gutenberg.org 75,000+ Donated eBooks representing over 100 languages are at: http://www.gutenberg.cc 100,000 Total Titles In toto, counting the eBooks donated to us from other eLibraries, individuals and schools at http://www.gutenberg.cc we now have in well excess of 100,000 titles, though it is probably closer to an even 100,000, given various duplications, etc. Production Year Statistics The numbers presented below will approximate what are recorded as of noon on January 6, and the production year will be recorded as running last year from Wednesday, January 7, 2009 through January 6, 2010, and the coming year will end on January 5, 2011. Thus we had 52 Wednesdays this past year for 364 days; every once in a while we get 53 production weeks on this calendar, which has to be one reason for eventually changing it. Here is how we ended 2009 day | cnt ----------------+----- Wed 2009-12-30 | 9 Thu 2009-12-31 | 12 Fri 2010-01-01 | 6 Sat 2010-01-02 | 10 Sun 2010-01-03 | 2 Mon 2010-01-04 | 21 Tue 2010-01-05 | 5 Weekly Total 65 Grand total for today: 30761 from automated in house counter 25866 English en 1531 French fr 625 German de 517 Finnish fi 455 Dutch nl 405 Chinese zh 384 Portuguese pt 270 Spanish es 225 Italian it etc. 30,761 Up 3,145 From 27,616 PG General Automated Count 1,830 Up 104 From 1,726 Project Gutenberg of Australia 675 Up 121 From 554 Project Gutenberg of Europe 468 Up 243 From 225 Project Gutenberg of Canada [Estimated] 2,008 DN 423 From 2,431 PrePrints [Subtracted 307 Chinese eBooks] ====== ====== 35,742 Up 3,190 From 32,552 Grand Total [Counting subtractions] 9.825 eBooks Per Day 68.773 eBooks Per Week 297.850 eBooks Per Month /// Here is how we ended 2008 27,616 PG General Automated Count 1,726 Project Gutenberg of Australia 554 Project Gutenberg of Europe 225 Project Gutenberg of Canada [Estimated] [202 up to December, no current report] 2,431 PrePrints [Counting the 307 Chinese eBooks +111] ====== ====== 32,552 Grand Total [Counting those PrePrints] Here is how we ended 2007 The combined PG projects had produced a total of 26,161 titles. The most number of books posted... ...in one day was 65 on the 26th December ...in one week was 151 in Week 18 (week ending 9th May) ...in one month was 477 in November We averaged 338 per month [Over 4,000 for the year] 78 per week 11.13 per day 99 titles were newly REposted to the new filing system, bringing us almost to the 2,000 mark. Here is a small selection of project milestones; TOTAL Original Project Gutenberg eBooks equals about the number of books in the average U.S. public library 32,500 on 20082121 [Counting the 307 Chinese Preprints] [And presuming 3 after official count] 32,000 ~~ Rechecking Date 31,500 on 20081021 [not an error, 1,777 PrePrints] 30,000 on 20081021 29,500 on 20080919 29,000 ~~ Rechecking Date 28,500 ~~ Rechecking Date 28,000 ~~ 20080516 27,500 on 20080405 27,000 ~~ 20080229 26,500 on 20080126 26,000 on 20071224 25,000 on 20071012 24,000 on 20070710 23,000 on 20070415 PG-AU 1,700 on 20081010 1,600 on 20080208 1,500 on 20070407 PG Canada 175 on 20080930 100 on 20080325 110 on 20080417

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Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter
by Michael S. Hart 21 Dec '09

21 Dec '09

Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter The Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter--Dec. 21, 2009 eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since 1971 36 Months to The End of the World Via Mayan Calendaring on December 21, 2012 [some now saying October 11, 2011] Leaving 3 years 0 months, 12 0/3 seasons or 36 months. Not to worry, I will still make long range predictions, such as that there will be affordable petabytes [2021], and enough eBooks to fill an entire petabyte around the same time. Welcome To Our Newest PG Mirror. . .In Africa!!! Continent: Africa Nation: Namibia Location: Windhoek Provider: Polytechnic of Namibia Url: http://gutenberg.polytechnic.edu.na Url: http://ftp.polytechnic.edu.na/pub/gutenberg The mirror is updated thrice daily. PROJECT GUTENBERG TAG CLOUD We invite interested persons to visit a tag cloud visualization and search system at www.bookdownloadlibrary.com This is updated weekly, from the Project Gutenberg catalog. IPHONE SOUGHT Project Gutenberg is seeking donation of an iPhone, and perhaps other modern cell phones and eBook readers. We are working on some new versions of content at www.gutenberg.org These need to work, including in Europe , but without having a paid cell phone plan. In other words, they need to be unlocked or unlockable. We are particularly interested in devices that have built-in WiFi, so they can access content at www.gutenberg.org without using the cellular network at all. Project Gutenberg is a charitable 501(c)(3) organization in the US. From: John M Mizzi <j.mizzi(a)mizzisoft.com> Subject: Gutenberg Books on Facebook I did a facebook application called Book Gift which is of course for free. It works by someone from Facebook choosing a book and if he/she likes it she can send her/his facebook friends the book as a gift. You can also bookmark the book so you can go straight to it afterwards. If you want to see the facebook application search for Book Gift in facebook or you can go directly via: http://apps.facebook.com/book-gift/ Saved By The Bell!!! As some of you already know, I was already preparing my public apology for missing on one of my prediction that we would have terabyte "pocket drives" this year. When the noon finally came out a couple weeks after the prime time of "Black Friday" and "Cyber Monday," I must admit that I was pretty sure we were NOT going to quite see the terabyte pocket drives this year. Pocket drives are the 2.5" USB drives literally of size requirements that would fit in all but small pockets, a lack of external power requirements is also a plus, but there were some that had problems in that area, though, if we are lucky, that won't be a problem now. You should be able to order online for $200 from a very wide number of locations. Speaking Of The nook I finally got to play with one but it was uncooperative in the extreme, finally taking several employees totals of perhaps 10 minutes to take their cover off, take out the battery for long enough, and put it all back. It's apparently NOT got a RESET button. . .duh. Presuming you don't have that kind of hassle, let us go to the actual reading of a book. For some reason I see no actual reason for, the books don't come preformatted for the default settings of the nook. Huh? Sorry, but when you open a book the whole thing will be totally bogged down with formatting the book for what I guess was close to a minute with one of their test book titles, "Pride and Prejudice," by Jane Austen. I would like to presume it only needs to do all that when first time readers open the book, but I have feeling it might need it every time you restart the nook. It might have lost all the formatting, bookmarks, etc., there was the next person in line to see it, so I didn't have all the time I would have liked to test things out. As usual with eInk, turning pages is totally a fiasco! Not to mention that "Pride and Prejudice" required page turns number about 40 to get to the start of the book-- as Barnes and Noble felt obligated to stick in all sort of title pages, copyright pages, and prefatory material to justify charging for a public domain book they quite literally might have gotten from us. OK, so, not counting the reboot it has taken a hyper me at least two minutes to get to page one of a test book, and I have to admit I was impressed with the look-feel, and the contrast was somehow better than any other eInk product, though I am not sure technically how. Perhaps the letter were larger than one might think, as I noted there really weren't all that many of them on the page, so I presume there were a LOT of pages to click. In the end, however, I could have turned on my netbook, downloaded the entire book from scratch, and been there on page one with far less hassle and clicking. Yes, they were exactly the same price. Yes, the nook is smaller. No, it doesn't do "real" WiFi in the sense that it ONLY apparently connects you to Barnes & Noble, no matter if you are using your own router's WiFi. Nothing else. I heard that you can put in books from other sources from the USB cable, but, given the other overestimation from the sales force at B&N, I would like to see it first. Even then, I am presuming there will likely be a format issue of even larger proportions than the stalling with their own demonstration books. However, I should think that if it actually worked, then a learning curve would make it somewhat easier after a while, or that you will simply learn to have something else to do for a minute, or whatever, while the nook formats each book. If your designs are like mine, to have thousand of books, which they did emphasize, that's thousands of minutes. Quite literally, you could have thousands of books with small SD Micro chips up to 16G that snap in the back, but one should be warned, they don't snap in the usual manner. Our All Time Hottest Requests!!!!!!! FLASH RAM I am looking for the earliest flash RAM possible. The ideal piece around which to center this collection is one of the 8 megabyte USBs. The very earliest were PCMCIA cards, such as used for the Poqet computer, etc. The earliest USB flash drives were DisgoDizgo, M-Systems and these were OEMed by IBM, HP, etc. They are particular in a recognizable fashion because their snapon connectors resemble the connectors of jigsaw puzzles. We received two examples of RAM actually labeled "Flash," for the H-P 95 pocket DOS machine from 1991, and a sample of Fairchild bubble memory, as well, from down under. Thank you, Mate! POWERPOINT We need someone who can do PowerPoint illustrations. One in particular, building a 3-D box of 1,000 dominoes. Additional Newsletter Services In addition, we will provide the PG Canada Newsletter and totals from PG of Australia, Europe, PrePrints, etc. These totals do NOT include 75,000+ at httpwww.gutenberg.cc Where there are eBooks representing over 100 languages. The Project Gutenberg Statistical Report [As of about noon Central Daylight Time] Various totals from the ~30,000 at httpwww.gutenberg.org and our other Project Gutenberg Sites day | cnt ----------------+----- Mon 2009-12-14 | 11 Tue 2009-12-15 | 4 Wed 2009-12-16 | 4 Thu 2009-12-17 | 10 Fri 2009-12-18 | 7 Sat 2009-12-19 | 7 Sun 2009-12-20 | 9 Last month: day | cnt ----------------+----- Sat 2009-11-14 | 6 Sun 2009-11-15 | 4 Mon 2009-11-16 | 6 Tue 2009-11-17 | 9 Wed 2009-11-18 | 3 Thu 2009-11-19 | 6 Fri 2009-11-20 | 5 Thanks to Marcello Perathoner! Here are the current language totals for languages with 200 or more eBooks. Grand total for today: 30613 25757 English en 1520 French fr 618 German de 515 Finnish fi 453 Dutch nl 405 Chinese zh 376 Portuguese pt 270 Spanish es 220 Italian it Compared to last month's: Grand total for today: 30399 25587 English en 1498 French fr 614 German de 515 Finnish fi 451 Dutch nl 404 Chinese zh 371 Portuguese pt 268 Spanish es 218 Italian it Total increase: +214 Previous increase: +205 Previous increases: +254 +281 +294 +287 All Reported Languges Not counting PrePrints, Canada, Australia, PG Europe Thanks to Greg Newby! /// And From Project Gutenberg Sites Worldwide 30,613 up 214 PG General Automated Count 1,830 up 7 PG of Australia 664 up 2 PG of Europe 2,008 -- 0 PG PrePrints, Reserved [42] 436 19 Posted #400 on October 10 [No additional news from PG of Canada] [Note previous estimates were 50 too high] [We now have numbers for July thru August] July: 14 (Title 349 to 362) August: 16 (Titles 363 to 378) September: 17 (Titles 379 to 395) October: 13 (Titles 396 to 408) November: 9 [up to November 21] ====== 35,551 242 [Not counting Canada's re-illustration] Last month: 35,311 up 235 [Including correcting above estimate by 2] Note There are perhaps 100 eBooks not listed here that are already in circulation from Project Gutenberg. Note PG Canada includes English, French, and Italian. /// Here is how we ended 2008 27,616 PG General Automated Count 1,726 Project Gutenberg of Australia 554 Project Gutenberg of Europe 225 Project Gutenberg of Canada [Estimated] [202 up to December, no current report] 2,431 PrePrints [Counting the 307 Chinese eBooks +111] ====== ====== 32,552 Grand Total [Counting those PrePrints] Here is how we ended 2007 The combined PG projects had produced a total of 26,161 titles. The most number of books posted... ...in one day was 65 on the 26th December ...in one week was 151 in Week 18 (week ending 9th May) ...in one month was 477 in November We averaged 338 per month [Over 4,000 for the year] 78 per week 11.13 per day 99 titles were newly REposted to the new filing system, bringing us almost to the 2,000 mark. Here is a small selection of project milestones; TOTAL Original Project Gutenberg eBooks equals about the number of books in the average U.S. public library 32,500 on 20082121 [Counting the 307 Chinese Preprints] [And presuming 3 after official count] 32,000 on Calculating 31,500 on 20081021 [not an error, 1,777 PrePrints] 30,000 on 20081021 29,500 on 20080919 29,000 ~~ Calculating 28,500 ~~ Calculating 28,000 ~~ 20080516 27,500 on 20080405 27,000 ~~ 20080229 26,500 on 20080126 26,000 on 20071224 25,000 on 20071012 24,000 on 20070710 23,000 on 20070415 PG-AU 1,700 on 20081010 1,600 on 20080208 1,500 on 20070407 PG Canada 175 on 20080930 100 on 20080325 110 on 20080417 /// Many thanks to all who have helped us reach our 39th year! Michael S. Hart Founder Project Gutenberg

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About Wattpad eBooks
by Michael S. Hart 21 Nov '09

21 Nov '09

Rather than including this with the monthly statistics, we are preenting this as a separate email to make this easy to save and reference. From: http://www.wattpad.com/about In 2006, we set out to revolutionize the way people publish and read written material. Today, Wattpad is the most popular ebook community for readers and writers to discover, share and connect. With over 4 million downloads, Wattpad is also the world's most widely used mobile ebook application. Using your web browser or mobile phone, you have instant access to hundreds of thousands of novels, short stories, fan fiction, poetry, essays and more. With just a few clicks, you can share your own written work with people around the world. With the growing demand for ebooks and mobile reading, this represents a great opportunity for writers everywhere. Your work is just waiting to be discovered! The Wattpad Team Ivan is one of the co-founders of Wattpad. He is the technical guru behind the scenes. The cool features you see on here are most likely done by him. On the rare occasion that he is not working on a new feature, he loves to read fantasy, mystery and science fiction stories (on Wattpad of course). He is also pretty good writer. Check out his stories on his profile. Allen is one of the co-founders of Wattpad. He handles the business side of things. Like most Wattpaders, he loves to read. He is working on his first story in his spare time. Check out his profile and see if it's ready yet. Eva is responsible for our international and community efforts. When she is not chatting with Wattpaders scattered across 24 time zones, she enjoys reading romance stories on her Wattpad iPhone app. Check out what she's reading on her profile. /// Here are some notes forwarded from Allen: > Founded in 2006, Wattpad's vision is to revolutionize the way people publish > and read written works. The material on Wattpad is created by the community > of users. Anyone can publish what they have written - a romantic story, a > fan fiction, poetry or a novel - and read by anyone. All the content can be > easily accessed on Wattpad's website (www.wattpad.com) mobile site > (m.wattpad.com) or through the Wattpad application that supports over 1,000 > phone models including Nokia, BlackBerry, Apple iPhone, Google Android, > Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, LG, Sharp, Sanyo and more. > > Wattpad has experienced explosive growth since its inception. Wattpad is > now the world's most popular ebook community where readers and writers > discover, share and connect, delivering billions of pages from its library > of over 200,000 ebooks created by the community. Wattpad generates more than > 3.5M visits and 30M page views per month from its websites. With over 4 > million downloads, Wattpad is also the most widely used mobile ebook > application in the world. > > == > > In more lament terms - we are "YouTube for ebooks" and "MySpace for > writers". We want to provide a friction-free way for writers to publish > their content without any intermediary. Writers can retain copyright of > their works, although they can also specify that their works are public > domain or CC. We DO NOT welcome copyright infringing material. On average > we have 20K uploads per month. Due to the high volume it is impossible for > us to investigate each upload and verify that it is not copyright > infringing. As such, we work with large trade publishers to implement > filters to ensure that copyright infringing uploads are blocked. Today, we > have over 150K "signatures" in our filter. Our community of writers and > users also report inappropriate uploads to us. This "wiki-like" model has > been very effective. > > We also invest a lot in our international and mobile effort. We support > over 20 languages. Also, since the beginning we recognize that majority of > the world's population cannot speak English or don't have a desktop > computer. That's why we want to support all the major languages as well as > virtually all phone models. Today, half our traffic is from mobile. Our > traffic is also equally split between developing and developed countries. > > Unlike project Gutenberg, we are a for-profit organization. That said, I > don't see there is any problem in helping the world to eliminate illiteracy > while making a profit at the same time.

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Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter
by Michael S. Hart 21 Nov '09

21 Nov '09

Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter The Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter--Nov. 21, 2009 eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since 1971 37 Months to The End of the World Via Mayan Calendaring on December 21, 2012 [some now saying October 11, 2011] Leaving 3 years 1 months, 12 1/3 seasons or 37 months. Not to worry, I will still make long range predictions, such as that there will be affordable petabytes [2021], and enough eBooks to fill an entire petabyte around the same time. 40 Years Ago The Following Just Got Started The Lunar Landings The Internet Sesame Street Wendy's Hamburgers Only about 1/3 of Project Gutenberg readers are U.S. We Recently Published Our: 200th eBook in Italian 250th eBook in Spanish 400th eBook in Chinese 500th eBook in Finnish 600th eBook in German and our 400th eBook on PG of Canada and 1800th eBook from Project Gutenberg of Australia Our 1500th in French is expected right about now. It is the four volume set of de Toqueville's "Democracy." Our All Time Hottest Requests!!!!!!! FLASH RAM I am looking for the earliest flash RAM possible. The ideal piece around which to center this collection is one of the 8 megabyte USBs. The very earliest were PCMCIA cards, such as used for the Poqet computer, etc. The earliest USB flash drives were DisgoDizgo, M-Systems and these were OEMed by IBM, HP, etc. They are particular in a recognizable fashion because their snapon connectors resemble the connectors of jigsaw puzzles. We received two examples of RAM actually labeled "Flash," for the H-P 95 pocket DOS machine from 1991, and a sample of Fairchild bubble memory, as well, from down under. Thank you, Mate! POWERPOINT We need someone who can do PowerPoint illustrations. One in particular, building a 3-D box of 1,000 dominoes. Additional Newsletter Services In addition, we will provide the PG Canada Newsletter and totals from PG of Australia, Europe, PrePrints, etc. These totals do NOT include 75,000+ at httpwww.gutenberg.cc Where there are eBooks representing over 100 languages. As you may have noticed, I cheated by a few days on the date of this Newsletter so I could include #25,000 so I should warn you that the monthly totals will be larger, this month, and smaller next time. The Project Gutenberg Statistical Report [As of about noon Central Daylight Time] Various totals from the ~30,000 at httpwww.gutenberg.org and our other Project Gutenberg Sites day | cnt ----------------+----- Sat 2009-11-14 | 6 Sun 2009-11-15 | 4 Mon 2009-11-16 | 6 Tue 2009-11-17 | 9 Wed 2009-11-18 | 3 Thu 2009-11-19 | 6 Fri 2009-11-20 | 5 Thanks to Marcello Perathoner! Here are the current language totals for languages with 200 or more eBooks. Grand total for today: 30399 25587 English en 1498 French fr 614 German de 515 Finnish fi 451 Dutch nl 404 Chinese zh 371 Portuguese pt 268 Spanish es 218 Italian it Compared to Last Month's Grand total for today: 30194 25408 English en 1493 French fr 613 German de 515 Finnish fi 449 Dutch nl 402 Chinese zh 361 Portuguese pt 267 Spanish es 217 Italian it Total increase: +205 Previous increase: +254 Earlier increase +281 and Total increase +294 and Previous month +287 All Reported Languges Not counting PrePrints, Canada, Australia, PG Europe Thanks to Greg Newby! /// And From Project Gutenberg Sites Worldwide Grand total for today: 30399 25587 English en 1498 French fr 614 German de 515 Finnish fi 451 Dutch nl 404 Chinese zh 371 Portuguese pt 268 Spanish es 218 Italian it 30,399 up 205 PG General Automated Count 1,823 up 15 PG of Australia 662 up 6 PG of Europe 2,008 -- 0 PG PrePrints, Reserved [42] 417 9 Posted #400 on October 10 [No additional news from PG of Canada] [Note previous estimates were 50 too high] [We now have numbers for July thru August] July: 14 (Title 349 to 362) August: 16 (Titles 363 to 378) September: 17 (Titles 379 to 395) October: 13 (Titles 396 to 408) November: 9 [up to November 21] ====== 35,311 up 235 [Including correcting above estimate by 2] Note There are perhaps 100 eBooks not listed here that are already in circulation from Project Gutenberg. Note PG Canada includes English, French, and Italian. /// Here is how we ended 2008 27,616 PG General Automated Count 1,726 Project Gutenberg of Australia 554 Project Gutenberg of Europe 225 Project Gutenberg of Canada [Estimated] [202 up to December, no current report] 2,431 PrePrints [Counting the 307 Chinese eBooks +111] ====== ====== 32,552 Grand Total [Counting those PrePrints] Here is how we ended 2007 The combined PG projects had produced a total of 26,161 titles. The most number of books posted... ...in one day was 65 on the 26th December ...in one week was 151 in Week 18 (week ending 9th May) ...in one month was 477 in November We averaged 338 per month [Over 4,000 for the year] 78 per week 11.13 per day 99 titles were newly REposted to the new filing system, bringing us almost to the 2,000 mark. Here is a small selection of project milestones; TOTAL Original Project Gutenberg eBooks equals about the number of books in the average U.S. public library 32,500 on 20082121 [Counting the 307 Chinese Preprints] [And presuming 3 after official count] 32,000 on Calculating 31,500 on 20081021 [not an error, 1,777 PrePrints] 30,000 on 20081021 29,500 on 20080919 29,000 ~~ Calculating 28,500 ~~ Calculating 28,000 ~~ 20080516 27,500 on 20080405 27,000 ~~ 20080229 26,500 on 20080126 26,000 on 20071224 25,000 on 20071012 24,000 on 20070710 23,000 on 20070415 PG-AU 1,700 on 20081010 1,600 on 20080208 1,500 on 20070407 PG Canada 175 on 20080930 100 on 20080325 110 on 20080417 /// Many thanks to all who have helped us reach our 39th year! Michael S. Hart Founder Project Gutenberg

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New Project Gutenberg Newsletter Format
by Michael S. Hart 05 Nov '09

05 Nov '09

New Project Gutenberg Newsletter Format Project Gutenberg Prose Newsletter November 5th, 2009 Please allow me to introduce our new Newsletter Editor, Andrea Kobeszko: Andrea Crisp <andreamcrisp(a)yahoo.com> and also to introduce our new Newsletter format, which, as requested is going to be shorter due to being bi-weekly, the 5th and 21st of months. The 5th will be dedicated mostly to articles, the 21st to statistics. Please send replies directly to both Andrea and hart(a)pglaf.org. Now for the new Newsletter. "Through literacy you can begin to see the universe." Grace Slick In this Issue: -An interview with Michael Hart -Libraries check out the eBook - by Andrea Kobeszko -The Net has gone mobile - Guest writer Michael Hart shares his thoughts -What does the future hold? - by Andrea Kobeszko -Zoe Blade's new Gutenberg site needs volunteers -More calls for volunteers -eBook News Bytes -What's new at PG? AN INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL HART -Andrea Kobeskzo & Michael Hart I recently had the privilege of interviewing Michael Hart, former editor and founder of Project Gutenberg. In our interview, Michael discusses the future of PG, and looks back on how it has evolved through changing times. -So why are you passing the editor torch? This isn't the first time. It's mostly to get PG used to not depending on me so much. I have tried as hard as I dare, not to be a central figure by voicing my own opinions other than to balance others. I don't really mind doing the Newsletter, but I like to see more other points of view, styles, perspectives, interest, etc. -Project Gutenberg has had a long and tumultuous road. How do you feel the face of PG has changed or evolved through the years? Believe it or not, I never thought of it as tumultuous. Yes, there were a few years of hard times, but that's my life's story, but since I never let us get addicted to money it never made a difference when there wasn't any. How has PG evolved? Well, from 1971 to 1988-89 no one paid any attention so it was just me with tilting at windmills, but I knew eBooks and eLibraries should be two of the great wonders of an entirely new world, so I was never tempted to give up-- never. I just had to wait for the world to catch up. Believe it or not people were still saying eBooks were never going to make it just a few years ago. Look for a quote in the Wall St. Journal: "Ebooks are never going to make it." Before that the NY Times: look for: "twitchy" screen. However now that it's obvious they are moving eBooks on their own, but I can't tell how serious they are. They may just be following the rule of simple reporting: "Follow The Money." If eBooks fall flat will they all just move on and pretend there was never any interest? The first goal of PG was just to prove eBooks feasible. My own estimations were that it would take about 10,000, and that seems to have proved correct as Google called me in to advise them ASAP after we hit 10,000, and we went to do just that on December 14, 2003: and they announced they had invented eBooks and eLibraries December 14, 2004. However, they did the opposite, or rather exact opposite of what I said they should do and look what happened. Most of the big legal fray is because they were more money oriented, and as such may have intentionally played the copyright cards that got them in the big legal hassles. If they had started out by emphasizing the public domain it probably would have worked out a lot better for them in the press as the good will they would have built up would have gone a long way. Personally, I am OK with nearly any eBook format that is compact and search quote friendly. -You've achieved a lot toward the cause of digitizing public works. Do you feel that one achievement stands out above the rest? One thing was just keeping such a vastly different bunch of diverse persons working more or less together for so long. . . . This was pretty much that first example of what is now so popular, international virtual cooperation. One of my personal favorites was doing our 100th eBook: The Complete Works of Shakespeare. . . . I will probably always remember that all nighter, as we finished up months of very intense work to do it on time. Another favorite was doing our own translation of Siddhartha, then fighting off Hermann Hesse's copyright lawyers!!! -Where do you see Project Gutenberg in ten years? In twenty? By 2020 we will be buying petabyte drives, not terabytes. We'll have enough space to hold a billion eBooks of a million characters. Yes, they will pass more laws against it. In fact we are working on publicizing the next one already. The biggest tragedy was Larry Lessig at The Supreme Court. Look that one up, find out who he represented before Eldred. By 2030 a billion eBooks. . . .here is how it would/could/should happen: 10 million public domain eBooks free on the Net. . .that's 40% of them. [Just ask any information professional. . .there are ~25 million] 100 languages. . .that's 40% of those with over a million speakers. [Just ask any languages professional] 10 million eBooks translated into 100 different languages equals: ONE BILLION eBOOKS. Common people will be able to buy a petabyte drive to put it on in 2020, just as we now buy terabyte drives that hold a million eBooks. The laws will be tested as it becomes more and more obvious that there is no longer any copyright expiration. . .ever. . .permanent copyright! It will cost more than Iraq, more than Wall St. Each 20 years of copyright extension removes a million public domain books, not to mention newspapers, magazines, music, movies, etc., etc., etc. If you count a lifetime of access to one of those million books worth $.01, then think how much it costs 300 million people to lose a million books each, as public domain, for their entire lifetimes. The powers that be don't want a very literate well educated public. Did you ever watch Roots? Remember the slave who went to Harvard Law School?? I'm afraid that the following catch phrase will take on ever more meaning: "The Information Age: For Whom? Only Those Who Can Pay For It?" The goal of Project Gutenberg has always been to create "An Information Age" not as something on the order of "The Digital Divide," but something greater in terms of bringing literacy and education to the masses free of all charge and in a way the vast majority can access instantly. To this end my current goals are ever increasing cellphone accessibility and translation into more languages. WARNING: Get a phone with Wi-Fi or else the cost factor will enter into the equation, and use free Wi-Fi, of course. There are already ~4.5 billion active cellphones, with about 1.2 billion new ones being sold every year. Soon nearly everyone who wants one will have it and more and more of them will be suitable for eBooks. . .just go to bottoms of the pages when you locate books at http://www.gutenber.org and you should see the last sections is all eBook formats. The last is the newest and it's quite a hit: try QiOO and let me know how you like it. Don't forget to try the white on black reading feature, easy on the eyes. LIBRARIES CHECK OUT THE EBOOK By: Andrea Kobeszko Across the U.S., thousands of libraries are embracing eBooks. No longer the familiar home of tomes and periodicals only, these foundations are now using new technology for more than just computerizing their catalogues. Libraries, like so many other businesses of the book, are eager to attract the digitally savvy new generation. This downloadable wave has been a gradual transition for the library, and the books of yesterday are not yet extinct. The New York Public library currently offers over 17,000 eBook titles, just a fraction of their 800,000 circulating print titles. Comparing these numbers, it's obvious that eBook acquisitions still represent a small percentage of their budget. [But this budgetary expense will never need another copy. mh] Why the seeming reticence to stock up on eBooks? It's not only because the library still clings to the spine (pardon the pun) of its institution, which lies in the not so modern, good old fashioned pages of yester-year. The road to eBook downloads, as history has proven (i.e. Google) is often a bumpy one. One obstacle libraries face is the inability to keep up with new devices now dominating the industry. Although most libraries offer eBooks that are compatible with computers, Sony Reader and a handful of other digital devices, many of their downloadable offerings cannot be read on Amazon's Kindle or the Apple's iphone, both very popular e-readers. Another issue slowing down eBook acquisitions for libraries is the publishers themselves. Many publishers are thus far loath to permit eBook versions of their print copies to be allowed in libraries, due to concerns it will decrease sales of their print editions. This decision comes despite the fact that checking out a downloadable eBook greatly mirrors a checkout of a print copy. Instead of physically walking out of a library with book copy in hand, all is done at home, or anywhere else, with a digital device. The differences, in the instance of library patronage, seem more academic than financial. Yet even in the wake of these problems, eBook circulation is expanding at an amazing rate. eBook checkouts have increased to more than one million in 2009, up from 600,000 in 2007, according to OverDrive. eBooks are quickly proving an unstoppable force, and opening the floodgates have given libraries the chance to increase readership and cater to a new age of information seekers. Downloading a book in the comfort of home is no longer just a concept for most. It's a daily reality. For libraries, it is still a relatively new venture, riddled with many obstacles, but even more opportunities. THE NET HAS GONE MOBILE by Michael S. Hart Founder Project Gutenberg, Inventor of eBooks Those on the leading edge witnessed a watershed breakthrough milestone this week as the first reports came in indicating that the greater new mobile access to the Internet. . .great. . .greater. . .greatest. The most obvious bell they heard ringing was the sound of iPhone apps, with a first time ever report that there are now more eBooks apps than game apps for the iPhone and related hardware. This only a half year after Steve Jobs, one of my heroes, said that it was not in Apple's interest to support eBooks because no one reads. "The Time's They Are A'Changin'." With ~4.5 billion active cell/mobile phones in the world plus the fact that laptop computer sales surpassed desktop computer sales years ago, it should have been obvious that the majority of Internet access would be from mobile devices. . .right? The pundits seem to have missed this one. Sometimes even Steve Jobs. People are reading eBooks, and doing everything else on the Net from a majority of devices that are now mobile. If you have a web site and haven't yet figured out that you need to do a mobile version of that website, you are probably losing traffic. 1.2 billion cell/mobile phones were sold in the last four quarters and that was even in the middle of this huge recession. Netbooks have taken off as the next big thing. University library employees tell me that every other student there is on a laptop computer. . .50%, in a building filled with books and that so much traffic is going through that it slows the huge bandwidth of a major university location down to slower that what you get at home. The research center where our weekly Geek Lunches take place recently, very recently, upgrade their wifi so I got 2 megabytes per second, and it took only a couple weeks before everyone else realized this and set up their wifi connections to the point where it is a quarter as fast. Let's face it. . .mobile computing has taken over the world while most of us weren't paying enough attention to notice. What Are The Results? The first result is that the major sites have had to address a devices rush that makes The Gold Rush and rush hour look like a standstill. Believe it or not there are already sites that are prepared to receive people connecting from over ONE THOUSAND DIFFERENT MOBILE DEVICES! Why? Because these people want the traffic. As many of you know, I have been pushing cellphone/mobile eBooks for a number of years and I test more phones on http://www.gutenberg.org, at every opportunity. Why? Because it is obvious that we are going to get more eBook readers from cell/mobile phones than from computers. If we do not present a site that looks and acts decent to their phone, such people will simply head off to the next eBook site, lost forever, or close enough to forever, in a world moving so quickly. Therefore, I am asking YOU to test how YOUR PHONE works on our site in the near future and to write me about how it works, how it will better work in YOUR OPINION if we make certain adjustments, etc. This is BIG in terms of the fact that the site may look and act differently to the device YOU use than any other, and even acts totally differently via a different piece of browsing software on the very same hardware. Thus, I suggest/ask that you try various browsers, as well. In the last 24 hours I tried two different browsers on the same phone, and the one that came with the phone made Project Gutenberg Home Pages look totally empty until you scrolled down countless times, while that one we downloaded and installed ourselves worked just dandy. Go figure. Why? Because each device sends a line to the web site called a "User Agent" to tell the site what kind of device it is and how to talk to it, only some send such a poor set of instructions that we have to rewrite some or all of the page just for that one single device. That's the project I have set out for Project Gutenberg right now. Given that there are over ONE THOUSAND such devices, we need help. WILL YOU PLEASE HELP US GIVE YOU EBOOKS IN A BETTER WAY??? Thank You!!! Michael S. Hart WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD? A commentary by: Andrea Kobeszko Never was it so apparent to me how drastically our culture has changed then on one early afternoon at my local hair salon. I had arrived early, sat and immediately scanned the table for the most topical magazine. I found one, opened it and glanced fleetingly at my seatmates. There were four. One talked on her cell-phone, one text-messaged on her cell-phone, one stared off into space and the last well-kept lady tapped furiously on her blackberry, then stared at it as if she had discovered a long lost Rosetta stone. It dawned on me then how much had changed. I flashed back to another era, little more than a decade prior, when I would sit at the salon and sift through magazines. The women around me did likewise, back then. We had flipped pages in solidarity, making the most of our time in limbo by perusing whatever was available, be it recent news or even, for some, simple entertaining gossip. But that was last decade, and the years leading up to this one had brought a steady decline in my witness of people casually perusing at the salon, in my physician's waiting room, at the line in the market, or even in the bookstores I frequented. My generation, hedging insidiously over middle-age, had witnessed perhaps most closely the dawning of the digital takeover. We had found ourselves immersed in new technologies we could enjoy and grasp for the most part, although our children probably understood it better. So much speed and convenience and entertainment, but what of the aftermath? Reading and writing skills continue to decline in he United States. Could this new era come at the cost of literacy? Books may not be dead. They're just gathering dust on library shelves. Alarmists would claim that our society is crumbling. Perhaps this is not the case, but what does the future hold when leading universities begin clearing out books to make room for computer workstations? Times have changed, irrevocably, inevitably. The cold, hard truth is that the future lies less in the written page, and more on the screens of computer monitors and handheld digital devices. I will play the role of the idealist, and say that this evolution of technology has paved the way for an evolution of literacy, or in simpler terms, an evolution of the genre of literature. Can a conduit designed to bring the printed page to a computer screen, or even a cell phone, become literature's saving grace? Our children can still learn of Shakespeare, and still be enriched by Jules Verne, if in a way vastly different then we as children discovered them. In light of this, the future looks bright indeed. Literacy will not go the way of the dinosaur. Classic works of literature can, and have, taken a contemporary form, in an era of technology capable of delivering the wonderful stuff of books to nearly anyone on the globe in the blink of an eye, or the push of a button. ZOE BLADE'S PROJECT NEEDS VOLUNTEERS Hi! My name is Zoe Blade and I'm working on a project to format Gutenberg's eBooks. By taking Gutenberg's e-books, applying Wikipedia-style formatting to them, then saving them on this new website, we'll make it possible for computers to automatically convert these eBooks into a variety of other formats. This should make them much easier for the general public to find and read. I'd be very grateful if anyone would join me in copying existing Gutenberg eBooks into this new site. The site's address is: http://pg.writerpilot.com/ There's step-by-step documentation on the site. All you will need is an account, which I'll be happy to set up for you. Please let me know if you'd like to help out with this new project, and I'll set up your account right away. You can e-mail me at: zoe(a)bytenoise.co.uk Thank you very much, Zoe Blade CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS In addition to Zoe Blade's project, PG is looking for volunteers in a number of fields. If you're interested in submitting an article for our newsletter, or would like to donate your time in some other way, please contact editor(a)pg-news.org. EBOOK NEWS BYTES: The latest eBook news tidbits. Click the links to find out more! The Google Books saga continues: Judge requests Google, authors and publishers to submit a negotiated settlement by November 9th. Read the article for more details: http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/technology/6177558/google-authors-to-submit-re… Barnes & Noble launches eReader: The Nook. [Well, almost. I go every week to see it, but they've never had one yet.] It's a lot like the Kindle, but with a touchscreen. Read the article here: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/barnes_and_noble_nook_launch_details_s… iphone makes its presence known: See how it's stacking up against tough competitors like Kindle, and how it's impacted Nintendo DS! http://gigaom.com/2009/11/01/iphone-e-book-reader/ PG NEWS Looking for the latest news and stats from Project Gutenberg? You;ll find them in our next newsletter, scheduled for publication on November 21st.

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Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter
by Michael S. Hart 21 Oct '09

21 Oct '09

Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter The Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter--Oct. 21, 2009 eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since 1971 38 Months to The End of the World Via Mayan Calendaring on December 21, 2012 [some now saying October 11, 2011] Leaving 3 years 2 months, 12 2/3 seasons or 38 months. Not to worry, I will still make long range predictions, such as that there will be affordable petabytes [2021], and enough eBooks to fill an entire petabyte around the same time. Headline News [and lots of it!] Cell Phone Figures for Q3 of 2009 are out 1.2 Billion Cell Phones Sold in Last Year 20 Million iPhones versus 1.3 Million Macs We are going to need a new site for cellphones!!!!!!! WE NEED VOLUNTEERS TO CREATE http://www.gutenberg.org/mobile [Footnote: If we presume 4.8 billion total cellphones accounts in operation in the last year. that means 1/4 of all cellphone users got new phones last year. This constant upgrading is something I predict will keep us on a rapid increase in cellphone functions, including, but not limited to, books, calculators, browsers, etc. I heard on NPR this week that more persons read eBooks on cellphones than on computers or anything else.] 1800th eBook From Project Gutenberg of Australia 400th eBook From Project Gutenberg of Canada 35,000th Project Gutenberg eBook From All Of Our Sites As you know, two Newsletters ago we announced 25,000th in our collection of eBooks in English then last month we announced our 30,000th in all languages": counting those created or distributed under U.S. Copyright Law. This month we are are announcing the 35,000th eBook of all the various Project Gutenberg sites worldwide, and this includes Australia, Europe, Canada, etc., and the PrePrints section, which still has ~2,000. In addition we are announcing our 1,500th French eBook which is coming out at any moment, and de Toqueville's major work on "Democracy" is the one we have chosen. [At the moment of this writing the last polishing work is being done on all four volumes, and we have 1493 in our French collection already, so any moment now.] Previous details on these are included below. eBook Milestones Redux We just released our 25,000th English Project Gutenberg eBook as "Merriam-Websters Unabridged Dictionary, 1913" about a month ago, and we are now coming up on 30,000th in all languages, under U.S. Copyright Law and 35,000th created by all Project Gutenberg sites worldwide. This is not counting any of the ~75,000 eBooks available via http://www.gutenberg.cc which have been donated by many eLibraries outside the Project Gutenberg systems. In addition, Project Gutenberg of Australia is about to post its 1800th eBook, and we are coming up on #1500 of our eBooks in French. Last month: Project Gutenberg posted its 25,000th home- grown eBook: home-grown means not including eBooks given by the various Project Gutenbergs that are springing up, including Australia [approaching 2,000], PG of Europe is approaching 650, PG of Canada's approaching 500 and many more such events are taking place around the world. All in all, adding up all the Project Gutenberg sites in toto, not discount duplications, there are 100,000+ book titles, along with music, movies, audiobooks, etc. All in all the original Project Gutenberg has produced a total of 29,660 at the time of this release, meaning the their total in all 50+ languages they have produced will be turning 30,000 in about a month. This larger total includes nearly 1,500 books in French, about 600 in German, 500 in Finnish, over 400 in Dutch & Chinese, about 350 in Portuguese, and 250 in Spanish and the list goes on and on. If it is languages other than English that interest you: http://www.gutenberg.cc where there are over 100 languages represented in a wide variety of languages and subjects, with about 75,000 all total, approximately half of which are non-English. /// Our 30,000th eBook created under U.S. copyright law is a beautiful volume on birds, lavishly illustrated. Thanks!!! Michael /// We Recently Published Our: 200th eBook in Italian 250th eBook in Spanish 400th eBook in Chinese 500th eBook in Finnish 600th eBook in German and our 400th eBook on PG of Canada and 1800th eBook from Project Gutenberg of Australia Our 1500th in French is expected next week. Our All Time Hottest Requests!!!!!!! FLASH RAM I am looking for the earliest flash RAM possible. The ideal piece around which to center this collection is one of the 8 megabyte USBs. The very earliest were PCMCIA cards, such as used for the Poqet computer, etc. The earliest USB flash drives were DisgoDizgo, M-Systems and these were OEMed by IBM, HP, etc. They are particular in a recognizable fashion because their snapon connectors resemble the connectors of jigsaw puzzles. We received two examples of RAM actually labeled "Flash," for the H-P 95 pocket DOS machine from 1991, and a sample of Fairchild bubble memory, as well, from down under. Thank you, Mate! POWERPOINT We need someone who can do PowerPoint illustrations. One in particular, building a 3-D box of 1,000 dominoes. Additional Newsletter Services In addition, we will provide the PG Canada Newsletter and totals from PG of Australia, Europe, PrePrints, etc. These totals do NOT include 75,000+ at httpwww.gutenberg.cc Where there are eBooks representing over 100 languages. As you may have noticed, I cheated by a few days on the date of this Newsletter so I could include #25,000 so I should warn you that the monthly totals will be larger, this month, and smaller next time. The Project Gutenberg Statistical Report [As of about noon Central Daylight Time] Various totals from the ~30,000 at httpwww.gutenberg.org and our other Project Gutenberg Sites day | cnt ----------------+----- Wed 2009-10-14 | 6 Thu 2009-10-15 | 8 Fri 2009-10-16 | 8 Sat 2009-10-17 | 6 Sun 2009-10-18 | 2 Mon 2009-10-19 | 10 Tue 2009-10-20 | 14 Thanks to Marcello Perathoner! Here are the current language totals for languages with 200 or more eBooks. Grand total for today: 30194 25408 English en 1493 French fr 613 German de 515 Finnish fi 449 Dutch nl 402 Chinese zh 361 Portuguese pt 267 Spanish es 217 Italian it Total increase: +251 Grand total for last month: 29943 25197 English en 1486 French fr 606 German de 515 Finnish fi 447 Dutch nl 402 Chinese zh 354 Portuguese pt 260 Spanish es 216 Italian it Total increase +281 Previous month: Grand total: 29662 25002 English en 1454 French fr 597 German de 513 Finnish fi 441 Dutch nl 402 Chinese zh 344 Portuguese pt 253 Spanish es 203 Italian it Total increase +294 and Previous month +287 All Reported Languges Not counting PrePrints, Canada, Australia, PG Europe Thanks to Greg Newby! ////// And From Project Gutenberg Sites Worldwide 30,194 up 251 PG General Automated Count 1,808 up 9 PG of Australia 656 up 9 PG of Europe 2,008 dn 1 PG PrePrints, Reserved [42] 410 dn 40 Posted #400 on October 10 [No additional news from PG of Canada] [Note previous estimate was 50 too high] ====== 35,076 up 278 [Including correcting above estimate] Last Month 29,943 up 281 PG General Automated Count 1,799 up 13 PG of Australia 647 up 3 PG of Europe 2,009 dn 12 PG PrePrints, Reserved [42],etc. [PrePrints was down when I checked, sorry] 450 up 25 PG of Canada [Est. since End of June] [This estimate was at least 50 too high] ====== 34,848 up 310 Grand Total Last Month Before That 34,528 up 359 Grand Total Previous month 34,179 up 347 Grand Total Up from previous month's 33,832 up 320 Grand Total Note There are perhaps 100 eBooks not listed here that are already in circulation from Project Gutenberg. Note PG Canada includes English, French, and Italian. /// Here is how we ended 2008 27,616 PG General Automated Count 1,726 Project Gutenberg of Australia 554 Project Gutenberg of Europe 225 Project Gutenberg of Canada [Estimated] [202 up to December, no current report] 2,431 PrePrints [Counting the 307 Chinese eBooks +111] ====== ====== 32,552 Grand Total [Counting those PrePrints] Here is how we ended 2007 The combined PG projects had produced a total of 26,161 titles. The most number of books posted... ...in one day was 65 on the 26th December ...in one week was 151 in Week 18 (week ending 9th May) ...in one month was 477 in November We averaged 338 per month [Over 4,000 for the year] 78 per week 11.13 per day 99 titles were newly REposted to the new filing system, bringing us almost to the 2,000 mark. Here is a small selection of project milestones; TOTAL Original Project Gutenberg eBooks equals about the number of books in the average U.S. public library 32,500 on 20082121 [Counting the 307 Chinese Preprints] [And presuming 3 after official count] 32,000 on Calculating 31,500 on 20081021 [not an error, 1,777 PrePrints] 30,000 on 20081021 29,500 on 20080919 29,000 ~~ Calculating 28,500 ~~ Calculating 28,000 ~~ 20080516 27,500 on 20080405 27,000 ~~ 20080229 26,500 on 20080126 26,000 on 20071224 25,000 on 20071012 24,000 on 20070710 23,000 on 20070415 PG-AU 1,700 on 20081010 1,600 on 20080208 1,500 on 20070407 PG Canada 175 on 20080930 100 on 20080325 110 on 20080417 /// Many thanks to all who have helped us reach our 39th year! Michael S. Hart Founder Project Gutenberg

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Cellphone eBooks
by Michael S. Hart 28 Sep '09

28 Sep '09

Does anyone have any epxerience readin ebooks on a Samsung SCH-u540 Thanks So Much!!! Michael

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Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter
by Michael S. Hart 21 Sep '09

21 Sep '09

Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter The Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter--Sep. 21, 2009 eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since 1971 39 Months to The End of the World Via Mayan Calendaring on December 21, 2012 [some now saying October 11, 2011] Leaving 3 years 3 months, 13 1/4 seasons or 39 months. Not to worry, I will still make long range predictions, such as that there will be affordable petabytes [2021], and enough eBooks to fill an entire petabyte around the same time. Headline News New Book About eBooks Out This Week! [Quotations from the press release] "50 Benefits of Ebooks" is a lively introduction to the brave new worlds of ebooks and electronic publishing. This revised September, 2009 edition (now 50,000 words) is 25% larger than the March edition, with new chapters, and features an inspiring Afterword by Michael S. Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg. A PDF version is available for sale right now. An EPUB version will be available on September 28; a paperback will be released on October 14. The price is $ 2 -- one-tenth of the paperback price. There is a special discount for senior citizens and for buyers of the March edition: $ 1. More information on how and Where to Find Free Ebooks, essay: The Google Book Search Settlement Demystified" just a couple of the new and expanded areas. For more information please visit the book's blog-site http://www.EpublishersWeekly.net To buy the book http://www.lulu.com/content/multimedia/7657277 eBook Milestones We just released our 25,000th English Project Gutenberg eBook as "Merriam-Websters Unabridged Dictionary, 1913" about a month ago, and we are now coming up on 30,000th in all languages, under U.S. Copyright Law and 35,000th created by all Project Gutenberg sites worldwide. This is not counting any of the ~75,000 eBooks available via http://www.gutenberg.cc which have been donated by many eLibraries outside the Project Gutenberg systems. In addition, Project Gutenberg of Australia is about to post its 1800th eBook, and we are coming up on #1500 of our eBooks in French. Last month: Project Gutenberg posted its 25,000th home- grown eBook: home-grown means not including eBooks given by the various Project Gutenbergs that are springing up, including Australia [approaching 2,000], PG of Europe is approaching 650, PG of Canda is approching 500, and many more around the world. All in all, adding up all the Project Gutenberg sites in toto, not discount duplications, there are 100,000+ book titles, along with music, movies, audiobooks, etc. All in all the original Project Gutenberg has produced a total of 29,660 at the time of this release, meaning the their total in all 50+ languages they have produced will be turning 30,000 in about a month. This larger total includes nearly 1,500 books in French, about 600 in German, 500 in Finnish, over 400 in Dutch & Chinese, about 350 in Portuguese, and 250 in Spanish and the list goes on and on. If it is languages other than English that interest you: http://www.gutenberg.cc where there are over 100 languages represented in a wide variety of languages and subjects, with about 75,000 all total, approximately half of which are non-English. /// Our 30,000th eBook created under U.S. copyright law is a beautiful volume on birds, lavishly illustrated. Thanks!!! Michael /// We Recently Published Our: 200th eBook in Italian 400th eBook in Chinese 500th eBook in Finnish 600th eBook in German 1799th eBook from Project Gutenberg of Australia We are coming up on our 1500th in French. . .suggestions??? de Toqueville's Democracy? Voltaire? Others? We are coming up on our 250th in Spanish. . .suggestions??? Our All Time Hottest Requests!!!!!!! FLASH RAM I am looking for the earliest flash RAM possible. The ideal piece around which to center this collection is one of the 8 megabyte USBs. The very earliest were PCMCIA cards, such as used for the Poqet computer, etc. The earliest USB flash drives were DisgoDizgo, M-Systems and these were OEMed by IBM, HP, etc. They are particular in a recognizable fashion because their snapon connectors resemble the connectors of jigsaw puzzles. We received two examples of RAM actually labeled "Flash," for the H-P 95 pocket DOS machine from 1991, and a sample of Fairchild bubble memory, as well, from down under. Thank you, Mate! POWERPOINT We need someone who can do PowerPoint illustrations. One in particular, building a 3-D box of 1,000 dominoes. Additional Newsletter Services In addition, we will provide the PG Canada Newsletter and totals from PG of Australia, Europe, PrePrints, etc. These totals do NOT include 75,000+ at httpwww.gutenberg.cc Where there are eBooks representing over 100 languages. As you may have noticed, I cheated by a few days on the date of this Newsletter so I could include #25,000 so I should warn you that the monthly totals will be larger, this month, and smaller next time. The Project Gutenberg Statistical Report [As of about noon Central Daylight Time] Various totals from the ~30,000 at httpwww.gutenberg.org and our other Project Gutenberg Sites day | cnt ----------------+----- Mon 2009-09-14 | 12 Tue 2009-09-15 | 8 Wed 2009-09-16 | 5 Thu 2009-09-17 | 10 Fri 2009-09-18 | 9 Sat 2009-09-19 | 12 Sun 2009-09-20 | 11 Thanks to Marcello Perathoner! Here are the current language totals for languages with 200 or more eBooks. Grand total for today: 29943 25197 English en 1486 French fr 606 German de 515 Finnish fi 447 Dutch nl 402 Chinese zh 354 Portuguese pt 260 Spanish es 216 Italian it Total increase +281 Last month: Grand total: 29662 25002 English en 1454 French fr 597 German de 513 Finnish fi 441 Dutch nl 402 Chinese zh 344 Portuguese pt 253 Spanish es 203 Italian it Total increase +294 Previous month +287 All Reported Languges Not counting PrePrints, Canada, Australia, PG Europe Thanks to Greg Newby! ////// And From Project Gutenberg Sites Worldwide 29,943 up 281 PG General Automated Count 1,799 up 13 PG of Australia 647 up 3 PG of Europe 2,009 dn 12 PG PrePrints, Reserved [42],etc. [PrePrints was down when I checked, sorry] 450 up 25 PG of Canada [Est. since End of June] [No additional news from PG of Canada] ====== 34,848 up 310 Grand Total Last Month 34,528 up 359 Grand Total Previous month 34,179 up 347 Grand Total Up from previous month's 33,832 up 320 Grand Total Note There are perhaps 100 eBooks not listed here that are already in circulation from Project Gutenberg. Note PG Canada includes English, French, and Italian. /// Here is how we ended 2008 27,616 PG General Automated Count 1,726 Project Gutenberg of Australia 554 Project Gutenberg of Europe 225 Project Gutenberg of Canada [Estimated] [202 up to December, no current report] 2,431 PrePrints [Counting the 307 Chinese eBooks +111] ====== ====== 32,552 Grand Total [Counting those PrePrints] Here is how we ended 2007 The combined PG projects had produced a total of 26,161 titles. The most number of books posted... ...in one day was 65 on the 26th December ...in one week was 151 in Week 18 (week ending 9th May) ...in one month was 477 in November We averaged 338 per month [Over 4,000 for the year] 78 per week 11.13 per day 99 titles were newly REposted to the new filing system, bringing us almost to the 2,000 mark. Here is a small selection of project milestones; TOTAL Original Project Gutenberg eBooks equals about the number of books in the average U.S. public library 32,500 on 20082121 [Counting the 307 Chinese Preprints] [And presuming 3 after official count] 32,000 on Calcuating 31,500 on 20081021 [not an error, 1,777 PrePrints] 30,000 on 20081021 29,500 on 20080919 29,000 ~~ Calculating 28,500 ~~ Calculating 28,000 ~~ 20080516 27,500 on 20080405 27,000 ~~ 20080229 26,500 on 20080126 26,000 on 20071224 25,000 on 20071012 24,000 on 20070710 23,000 on 20070415 PG-AU 1,700 on 20081010 1,600 on 20080208 1,500 on 20070407 PG Canada 175 on 20080930 100 on 20080325 110 on 20080417 /// Here is the July emergency Newsletter in toto for archiving. Extra Edition of the PG Newsletter I'm sending this out now because I have serious doubts as to whether I will be able to do this very easily when the Newsletter is actually due. This may be the last time on this hard drive that I actually get booted up, and it was pretty much just luck that got me this far. I'll be buying some new computers this week, I hope, with the hopes that I will be more or less back to normal, but right now the thing won't even let me make backups as the USB ports have power, but don't recognize any drives. I'm actually dialed up on the modem right now. If any of you have any suggestions as to the best deals I should be looking at for laptops and netbooks, please let me know, and please cc: gbnewby(a)pglaf.org The Brief News We are rapidly coming up to our 25,000th eBook in English and all suggestions for what title to use are welcome. This should take place next month. In addition, we are coming up on our 30,000th PG eBook of all languages perhaps a month or so after that, so we are also looking for a great eBook in another language to put up as #30,000. We are giving away about 75,000 books per day through the http://www.gutenberg org server, for ~2 million per month and the monthly total was often over 3 million per month, all told over the past 4 years or so. This means we have given away over 100 million books over the past 4 years, just through that one site alone. The World eBook Fair In addition, over these same four years we have sponsored The World eBook Fair along with The Internet Archive, The World Public Library, ebooksabouteverything.org, etc. http://www.worldebookfair.org handed out a million files, just on one day alone, July 4, to start up this 39th year of presenting eBooks on the Internet. Please note: this is less than a million eBooks, as some entries are multi-file in nature. Traffic has since dropped to about half that, with a very healthy 50,000 downloads per day of our "best sellers." In its first year The World eBook Fair gave away nearly a total of 30 million eBooks, and if the averages have been at 25 million over the 4 years, that's a 200 million book total over those two URLs over a 4 year period, or totals somewhere in that range. This does not count all the other sites such as Australia or Canada or PG of Europe, etc. The Current PG Totals I'm not sure I have time right now to fill in everything, with monthly comparisons as I usually do, as I am running mostly on adrenaline right now and will have to stop soon to eat, sleep, shower, etc. Here are the brief reports you can compare to last month: I will also try to get back online after the fact and try to redo a real Newsletter with all info as of July 21st. Here are today's numbers for languages with 200+ eBooks: Grand total for today: 29326 24725 English en 1442 French fr 587 German de 508 Finnish fi 433 Dutch nl 402 Chinese zh 338 Portuguese pt 242 Spanish es 202 Italian it Courtesy of Greg Newby. Here are the weekly totals: day | cnt ----------------+----- Fri 2009-07-10 | 9 Sat 2009-07-11 | 11 Sun 2009-07-12 | 11 Mon 2009-07-13 | 11 Tue 2009-07-14 | 7 Wed 2009-07-15 | 8 Thu 2009-07-16 | 8 Courtesy of Marcello Perathoner We have recently been averaging just under 10 books per day with some very good days that are much better. If we are lucky, we may do 3,500 to 4,000 books for 2009. Not to mention the hundreds of books that have been updated and improved, corrected, etc. Many thanks to all who have helped us reach our 39th year! Michael S. Hart Founder Project Gutenberg

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Old Firewire Cable Needed
by Michael S. Hart 08 Sep '09

08 Sep '09

What I am looking for is a device (probably a camcorder or tape deck) that will play a Mini DV tape and has a 4 pin Firewire (IEEE 1394 output) (Sony calls it i.Link and DV out, Canon calls it a Firewire port, JVC call it a DV (Firewire) port, Panasonic calls it DV port, Samsung calls it a DV port, others may call it something else) that I can borrow for a very short period to get some material off of Mini DV tapes into my computer. I have the 4 pin to 4 pin cable I need to make the connection to my computer. If there is another type of device I can play a Mini DV tape and there is cabling that will present a 4 pin Firewire to my computer I could use that also, I just don't have the cabling.

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