michael s. hart created project gutenberg in 1971, "to break down the bars of ignorance and illiteracy". the idea was simple, yet brilliant: to put literature (books and other textual elements) in digital form, so that people could access them with computers. thus was born the first digital library. in 1971. hart typed in a few dozen high-profile documents, like the declaration of independence (e-text #1), the bill of rights (#2), the gettysburg address (#4), the constitution (#5), the king james bible (#10), and alice in wonderland (#11). but the project laid largely fallow for a few decades. hart just couldn't get anyone to see his broad vision. then, in the earlier 1990s, as personal computers had become commonplace and the first networks were beginning to emerge, the world got the idea. hart was ready. so, by 1993, he was working at a feverish pace, which wired magazine captured quite accurately -- if a bit snarkily -- in an article that mentioned rather prominently that hart sprinkled sugar on his pizza to fuel his late-night typing sessions. in 1993, hart's library comprised 100 e-texts. by 1997, it was already up to 1,000 e-texts; and just a year later, it had grown to 1,600. it was that year when wired picked hart as one of its "wired 25", who "have one thing in common: devotion to a singular ambition. they are attempting the impossible, and whether they succeed or fail, they will have a lasting impact on your life (and your kids)."
in that 1998 article, wired observed that hart was predicting that, "20 or 30 years from now, there's going to be some gizmo that kids carry around in their back pocket that has everything in it -- including our books, if they want them." for once, michael's prediction was nearsighted. it was less than 10 years later that kids started carrying around their kindle and iphone gizmos. hart's goal was always to digitize 10,000 e-texts by the year 2000, and he very nearly made it, reaching his magic mark in december of 2003. a sedate celebration was held in san francisco, and a c.d. containing the e-texts was created. today, project gutenberg has 50,000+ e-texts. it is the world's largest collection of free ebooks. of course, the project gutenberg library itself is mounted on the web, www.gutenberg.org, which has been its true home since the web was created. indeed, project gutenberg was one of the big initial jewels on the internet, thanks to the head-start which hart gave it, and everybody who talked about e-books was quick to praise the gutenberg library. and though many people (including myself) thought the plain-text format was boring, everyone appreciated the simple fact that the e-texts were online and thus could be downloaded by any web-connected person. it was truly a global library, and felt like it. thus, project gutenberg was where many turned to load up their kindles and ipads. as time passed, though, attention shifted from the public-domain project gutenberg to new books, and those still in copyright. and that's understandable, of course; but it means project gutenberg is mentioned rarely in current discussions of e-books. the unfortunate aspect of this inattention is that we have failed to recognize that books benefit greatly by being available. further, that benefit accrues to society! libraries, in particular, have been a huge reason for the progress of the last century. we are richer, thanks to our libraries... libraries are a very good investment! they pay off in benefits far more than they cost us in taxpayer obligations. books are a tremendous investment, and spreading books farther around gives a generous payback to society. but somehow we've forgotten all that, at least when it now comes to e-books. rather than think in terms of libraries -- global libraries! accessible anywhere! -- we think of the e-books on our machines, which we "purchase" from e-book-stores. (it's more like a "lease", but let's focus.) people might have hundreds of books on their ipads or iphones or kindles, which is impressive if you realize you're carrying all those books in your pocket, but it's not the same as a global library, one that consists of 50,000+ e-books. or one that can have 5 million e-books. or 10 million. or 50 million. or all of 'em. just when we obtained the tool that enables us to share books worldwide -- at virtually no cost for distribution -- we seem to have forgotten the benefits that we obtain when we do such sharing. we're staring at the books we bought, which are stagnant in the silo of the machine which we carry in our pocket. and we have forgotten how beautiful the bookshelves are at the library, ones with rows and rows of books, just waiting for us to pull one down, open it up, and drink in its delicious. and we have forgotten that books come alive when we share them, when we point to things in them, and discuss them with each other. books come alive when we can say "go to the library and get this book". books come alive when they're public. and libraries make books public. *** in 1958, ronald mcnair went to the local library for some books. the problem was that ronald mcnair lived in south carolina, and he was a 9-year-old african-american boy. and the library was for "whites only". since it was south carolina, after all. but ronald mcnair walked in anyway, and got the books he wanted to read, and walked to the check-out counter. the woman behind the counter said, "boy, you know you don't belong here." and ronald replied, "well, i would like to check out these books." the woman said, "if you don't leave, i'm going to have to call the police." ronald said "go ahead; i'll wait." police were called, his mom too, but ronald refused to leave until they let him check out the books. yes, he refused to leave the library. until they'd let him check out books. ronald mcnair grew up to become an astronaut. he perished in the challenger disaster. but today, that library is named after him. his legacy is an enduring one. just like the books in a library. for a delightful recounting of the whole tear-jerker story, go here:
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/28/133275198/astronauts-brother-recalls-a-man-who...
*** michael hart passed away in september of 2011. i miss him. i'm writing this because his birthday is today -- the 8th of march -- a day he shares with international women. but i am also writing this because of a blog-article that was posted recently.
https://borisanthony.net/writing/a-momentary-suspension-of-disbelief/
boris anthony is a very smart person. and he's actively involved with e-books. but even smart people, who are actively involved with e-books these days, seem to have forgotten about project gutenberg, the pivotal contributions of michael hart, and the vital role of the library in society. the word "library" comes up three times in the blog-post, but every time it refers to the personal library of an individual. and consider that anthony says this:
we need to begin charting what by all indications is a vast new world. By bringing ebooks onto the Open Web, they fill with the promise of so much more opportunity and value, for everyone.
first, this is not something that "we need to begin charting". michael hart did that long ago. it might well be a "vast new world", but only because we have forgotten the big lessons of project gutenberg in particular and libraries in general. instead, we let greedy corporations usurp books to serve a profit motive. we let them put a toll-booth on books -- a cash-register they could ring up every time someone wanted to read. what this has done is to make books insufficiently accessible so that society can attain the benefits that otherwise would accrue to us from open access. locking up books is counterproductive. everybody wants writers to be paid. the people who collect information and make it accessible to the world need to be supported for doing so. but the toll-booth model doesn't work. it was the wrong choice. letting it continue is a bad mistake. it will cause grievous harm to society. we have to correct this error. we need to create the libraries of the future -- digital libraries. we need to create a world library. we can't afford ignorance any more. we need to spread books freely, by any means necessary. now. -bowerbird ============================= advice on improving this piece is welcomed.