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Project Gutenberg: 35 Years of Electronic Texts
12 Dec 2005, 11:35:59 pm
5 Comments
I first heard about Project Gutenberg in the early-90s, pre-web, in my early online dealings, so I had assumed they started sometime around 1993. Little did I know that Michael Hart started the Project in 1971 (before I was born!), when computers were big and expensive, and books were much more the norm. Hart talks about his Project with the Wall Street Journal, telling all about how and why it started.
The Project is a labor of love, unlike Google's book-search aspirations, and bears little resemblance to the commercial search-scanning being done today. It echoes copying the paintings of the Great Masters by hand, or refinishing furniture. The purpose is not to create raw data: instead, the transcribers participate in the project to show their devotion to their books, laboriously bringing their old books to a modern world.
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User Comments  Ok, this project is good but with Google Book Search around, does it have a chance? Won't all of its books be but only a subset of Google's? Posted by Khalil A., 12/13/2005 04:13:59 | Google Book Search only allows snippets to be viewed by any user (and, despite hackers' skills, security holes will be repaired quickly) -- even if the book is public domain, because their 'scan' is of a copyrighted book. Newly-created versions of a book are still copyrighted (layout,design, formatting) by the current publisher, so unless Google is destroying antique books to make them fit in the scanner, book-searchers will only be able to get excerpts.
Gutenberg, on the other hand, allows readers to download the complete book, as it originally appeared in print (and, thus, entirely public domain). With LuLu today, someone can download a work of Jules Verne, run it through StarOffice, and have their own copies printed in a matter of minutes...an activity that makes publishers opposed to Google's venture go into seizures. Just as Dover books (an entirely PD profitable press) can exist when Random House is fighting for the best and newest, they fit different niches, so I don't think Gutenberg is going to be replaced by Google.Posted by Derek, 12/13/2005 07:28:43 |
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