rg with the goal of
making available for free, and electronically, literary works belonging
to public domain. A pioneer site in a number of ways, Project Gutenberg
was the first information provider on the internet and is the oldest
digital library. When the internet became popular in the mid-1990s, the
project got a boost and gained an international dimension. The number
of electronic books rose from 1,000 (in August 1997) to 5,000 (in April
2002), 10,000 (in October 2003), 15,000 (in January 2005), 20,000 (in
December 2006) and 25,000 (in April 2008), with a current production
rate of around 340 new books each month. With 55 languages and 40
mirror sites around the world, books are being downloaded by the tens
of thousands every day. Project Gutenberg promotes digitization in
"text format", meaning that a book can be copied, indexed, searched,
analyzed and compared with other books. Contrary to other formats, the
files are accessible for low-bandwidth use. The main source of new
Project Gutenberg eBooks is Distributed Proofreaders, conceived in
October 2000 by Charles Franks to help in the digitizing of books from
public domain.

[In Depth (published in 2005, updated in 2008)]

The electronic book (eBook) is now 37 years old, which is still a short
life comparing to the five and a half century print book. eBooks were
born with Project Gutenberg, created by Michael Hart in July 1971 to
make available for free electronic versions of literary books belonging
to public domain. A pioneer site in a number of ways, Project Gutenberg
was the first information provider on an embryonic internet and is the
oldest digital library. Long considered by its critics as impossible on
a large scale, Project Gutenberg had 25,000 books in April 2008, with
tens of thousands downloads daily. To this day, nobody has done a
better job of putting the world's literature at everyone's disposal,
while creating a vast network of volunteers all over the world, without
wasting people's skills or energy.

During the first twenty years, Michael Hart himself keyed in the first
hundred books, with the occasional help of others. When the internet
became popular, in the mid-1990s, the project got a boost and gained an
international dimension. Michael still typed and scanned in books, but
now coordinated the work of dozens and then hundreds of volunteers
across many countries. The number of electronic books rose from 1,000
(in August 1997) to 2,000 (i