Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 20, No. 225.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/humanities/cch/research/publications/humanist.html
www.princeton.edu/humanist/
Submit to: humanist_at_princeton.edu
Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2006 08:23:49 +0100
From: Michael Hart <hart_at_pglaf.org>
Subject: Re: 20.223 events: What to Do with a Million Books;
Innovations in Scholarly Communication
Speaking of a Million Books. . .it won't be that long before you can get
an entire million in one place. . .maybe 1/2 million starting Sunday, as
in the following press release. . . .
1/2 Million Volume Goal for Next Week's World eBook Fair!
Fair Hopes to Give Away 100 Million Copies of eBooks!
It Is Now One Week to The Second World eBook Fair!
500,000+ eBooks are scheduled to be available in October,
International Book Fair Month
For an advance look visit: http://worldebookfair.com
Press Release: Effective Sept 26 - October 3, 2006
A one minute visit to The World eBook Fair site could get
you a free copy of any of over 400,000 eBooks or an eBook
via a 50% off coupon from a commercial eBook vendor.
The Second World eBook Fair will add nearly 100,000 eBook
downloads to its free access site for a total of 400,000+
instantly downloadable books, and will hopefully add even
more than 100,000 commercial eBooks in mid-October, for a
grand total that could pass 1/2 million and approach 2/3,
by the end of the month as more and more eBooks are added
throughout the month.
This total includes over 100,000 from Project Gutenberg's
eBook library and over 300,000 of the World eBook Library
collection that are usually availably by subscription for
$8.95 per year, but are given away free of charges during
The World eBook Fairs.
500,000 eBooks From Over 100 eLibraries=World eBook Fair!
Over 100 worldwide electronic libraries have donated book
collections being made available to all in October, and a
total of over 125 could be in place by month's end.
If all the collections being amassed at this moment would
come to fruition during the International Book Fair Month
of October 1 - 31, the grand total could be well over the
estimated 1/2 million mark, perhaps even to 2/3 million--
but we're sticking with the estimate of 1/2 million for a
couple weeks until mid-October.
The Rapid Growth of eBooks
The First World eBook Fair gave away ~30 million eBooks a
few months ago in July, and now a Second World eBook Fair
is trying to give away 100 million, in addition to adding
requested new materials from the commercial eBook world.
Just 100 days after opening The First World eBook Fair in
which books were offered from 100 electronic libraries we
have already received donations of additional eBooks from
~25 more eLibraries from around the world and are looking
forward to two collections, one commercial, one free, for
sometime during The Second World eBooks Fair, each one in
excess of 100,000 additional eBooks.
Perhaps Twice As Many eBooks Will Be Included in October!
Up from the 1/3 million eBooks included in The First World
eBook Fair three months ago, perhaps 1/2 to 2/3 million at
the highest hopes are now goals for The Second World eBook
Fair scheduled to start on October 1, the beginning of the
International Book Fair Month.
What Is The World eBook Fair?
The first step towards building a library of eBooks was in
1971, 20 years before the word "Internet" appeared a first
time on the cover or front page of any major publication:
Page One, The Wall St. Journal, Oct. 29, 1991
The story was about the very eBooks that are appearing now
as part of The World eBook Fair, but the press is giving a
nearly total credit to Google and Yahoo, as if they should
be credited with the invention of eBooks and eLibraries.
The World eBook Fair is a continuing attempt to bring free
and inexpensive eBooks to the attention of the public, for
the purposes of increasing literacy and reading throughout
the entire world.
This is a major effort to increase awareness of eBooks for
downloading via the Internet, via cellphones, or via DVDS,
CDs, iPods, Palm Pilots and just plain computers.
If we can increase literacy and reading habits by just 10%
then we also increase the odds of a cure for AIDS by 10%.
Our goal is to reach 15% of the world population and to do
what we can to give each of them a library of millions and
millions of books they would not have access to otherwise.
The First World eBook Fair presented 1/3 million free book
files for download and The Second will include even more--
and will also include, at the request of our readers, some
additional new commercial eBooks.
Contact information for all parties is included below.
In response to requests from readers around the world, the
Second World eBook Fair will include modern books from the
commercial eBook publishers in greater numbers, perhaps as
many as 100,000 of these by the end of October, though the
entire commercial eBook count and release is very hushhush
at the moment, and we probably can't tell you until we are
literally at the very last moment.
However, there is a second possible collection of 100,000,
all of which will be free of charge, that is also a secret
project for the time being, also scheduled for unveiling a
few weeks from now during October.
Actually, each of these projects is targeting in excess of
100,000 books each.
If both of these project come to fruition in October as we
are hoping and planning, the grand total would likely rise
to over 600,000 and perhaps to 2/3 million, doubling eBook
totals from the First World eBook Fair.
Of course, if neither come to fruition in October then the
grand total is still between 400,000 and 500,000 eBooks, a
far sight from the 100,000 eBooks sometimes offered by the
Google Book Search project.
Bigger, Better, Faster, More
In addition to requests for more modern eBooks, efforts in
the Second World eBook Fair have been made to insure users
won't have the delays caused by such long virtual lines in
October, as the highest size and grade of bandwidth is now
in place at http://worldebookfair.com
New computers are also in place, along with a new software
upgraded in several areas to provide the easier and faster
searches that have also been requested,
Most of the eBooks are fully searchable, you can search to
find any quotation, name, etc., in hundreds of thousands.
Contacts For Further Information:
Michael S. Hart, Founder, Project Gutenberg <hart_at_pglaf.org>
USA Phone: 217-344-6623
John Guagliardo, Founder, World eBook Library<john_at_gutenberg.cc>
USA Phone: 808-292-2086
Prof. Greg Newby, CEO, Project Gutenberg <gbnewby_at_pglaf.org>
USA Phone: 907-450-8663
Visit Digital Pulp Publishing at http://www:ddpstore.com
Catherine Hodge 760-327-5110 USA Hodge_at_digitalpulppublishing.com
John Mizzi, Founder, Mobile [Cell Phone] eBooks +356 2155 0846
johnmizzi@mobilebooks.org http://www.mobilebooks.org [Malta]
Visit The World eBook Fair at http://worldebookfair.com
Here is some additional information from each of these parties:
Mobile [Cellphone] eBooks Are Becoming All The Rage
5,000 new eBooks for cellphones are being added this week
and this is only 1% of the hoped for 500,000 eBooks being
targeted for release on the first day of October in honor
of International Book Fair Month. Details below.
Up from the 1/3 million eBook files offered for download,
all free of charge, on July 4, in response to requests of
eBook readers around the world, more eBooks were added to
include more modern selections via commercial sources and
a wider variety of formats, which could total 1/2 million
eBooks in October. If all goes perfectly well there will
be 1/2 million free eBooks, AND over 100,000 from various
commercial eBook sources.
Given the unprecedented downloading of ~30 million eBooks
files in July, The World eBook Fair has created whole new
combinations of hardware and software to allow more files
to be downloaded by more people, with the hopes of giving
away 100 million eBooks in October.
Both Searching and Downloading of eBooks Now Streamlined
New software has been implemented to eliminate delays due
to high download activity, searches are now handled via a
completely different servers than downloads and searching
should be not only faster but easier, as more suggestions
are available when using the search engine.
Bandwidth should be multiplied by 6 or 7, and should thus
allow for everyone to log in at the same time without any
of the problems from overloading of lines.
Obvious Comparisons To Google
Google has just passed 100,000 eBooks, many of which will
not be allowed for download; nearly two years after their
huge launch of their 10 million book Google Print Library
back in 2004 = just 1% of their goal.
The World eBook Fair, which started just three months ago
appears to already be reaching 500,000 eBooks, the stated
goal for July 4, 2007, and could perhaps pass 2/3 million
which was their stated goal for July 4, 2008, but only if
all their ducks line up in a row and take off perfectly.
However, with two such massive additional projects on the
horizon, there is little doubt that The World eBook Fairs
will continue to outpace Google Book Search, which Google
had to rename the Google Print Library to since it turned
out users could neither print the books nor use them in a
traditional library sense.
Of course, this has been contradicted not only by Google's
actions, but also in their own words:
"Google Book Search is a means for helping users discover
books, not to read them online and/or download them."
However, in all honesty, we must inform you that Google's
current efforts seem to be in a better direction, even if
they don't appear to be making much progress toward their
10 million eBook goal as stated.
A Little eBook History
Project Gutenberg began the world's first eLibrary around
July 4, 1971 and has continued as the major voice for the
construction of free electronic libraries worldwide.
Project Gutenberg currently hosts over 100,000 eBooks for
free download on sites around the world. [Details below]
John Guagliardo and The World eBook Library
Michael Hart, Project Gutenberg founder, was invited to a
meeting of The Hawaii Library Association to present at a
yearly conference around 1999 by then Hawaii Library Assn
President John Guaglairdo, founder of World eBook Library
and now sponsor of The Project Gutenberg Consortia Center
and The World eBook Fair. John and Michael enjoy working
together on eBooks more than most people could imagine.
The World eBook Library has hundreds of thousands of book
titles available in .pdf files, any and all of which will
be downloadable free during The World eBook Fair, and are
permanent additions to your own eBook library. The books
are normally available for $8.95 per year subscription at
Greg Newby, Project Gutenberg CEO
Greg and Michael met at The University of Illinois School
of Library Science when Dr. Newby first arrived as a Ph.D
in Library and Information Science from Syracuse; friends
from the first moment they met they worked on information
science with the energy and perspectives only shared by a
combination of the young and the idealistic, both with an
assortment of skills and workaholic idealism that started
public computing at The University Of Illinois.
Greg is now spending much of his time running "The Arctic
Regions Supercomputing Center at the University of Alaska
at Fairbanks," and spends the rest of his working time on
Project Gutenberg, when not mushing his dog teams or home
with his family.
Catherine Hodge and Digital Pulp Publishing
Yet another workaholic idealist, Catherine met Michael on
one of the more popular eBook discussion lists, and their
mutual interests have carried them into World eBook Fairs
#1 and #2 with an ever increasing role being played by an
eBook commercial center.
Right now Catherine, Greg, John and Michael, and friends,
relatives, etc., are overworking themselves to create The
Second World eBook Fair in a manner than cannot be missed
by anyone who values literacy or literature.
John Mizzi and Mobile Books for Cellphones
John Mizzi, Founder of Mobile Books: contact info above,
is the latest major contributor with 5,000 eBooks via the
ranks of cellphone/mobile users all over the world and he
is already targeting a goal of 20,000 eBooks for the next
World eBook Fair.
100,000+ Project Gutenberg eBooks permanently available
The following 100,000+ eBooks are always free of charge:
21,500 eBooks at http://www.gutenberg.org ~50 languages
100,000 eBooks at http://www.gutenberg.cc ~100 languages
1,290 eBooks at http://gutenberg.net.au PG of Australia
350 eBooks at http://pge.rastko.net ~65 languages
via Project Gutenberg of Europe
Received on Fri Sep 29 2006 - 03:52:22 EDT
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