r that they will read the eText of
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland after seeing it on TV. Or that they will look
for the context of a quotation after hearing it in one of the Star Trek
episodes; nearly every episode of Star Trek quotes from books which are in the
Project Gutenberg collections.

The idea is that, whether they were avid readers of print books or not in the
past, people should easily be able to look up quotations they hear in
conversations, movies, music, or they read in books, newspapers and magazines,
within a library containing all these quotations in an easy-to-use format.
eTexts don't take up much space in ASCII format. They can be easily downloaded
with a standard phone line. Searching a word or a phrase is simple too. People
can easily search an entire eText by using the plain "search" menu available in
any program."

= 1,000 eBooks in August 1997

In 1997, the "output" was still an average of 32 eTexts per month. In June 1997,
Project Gutenberg released The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, by Howard Pyle
(published in 1883). In August 1997, it released its 1000th eText, La Divina
Commedia di Dante (published in 1321), in Italian, its original language.

In August 1998, Michael wrote: "My own personal goal is to put 10,000 eTexts on
the Net [editor's note: his goal was reached in October 2003] and if I can get
some major support, I would like to expand that to 1,000,000 and to also expand
our potential audience for the average eText from 1.x% of the world population
to over 10%, thus changing our goal from giving away 1,000,000,000,000 eTexts to
1,000 times as many, a trillion and a quadrillion in US terminology."

= 1,000 to 5,000 eBooks from 1998 to 2002

From 1998 to 2000, there was a steadfast average of 36 new eTexts per month. In
May 1999, there were 2,000 eTexts. The 2000th eText was Don Quijote, by
Cervantes (published in 1605), in Spanish, its original language.

Around 40 eTexts per month were released during the 1st semester 2001, and 50
eTexts during the 2nd semester. Released in December 2000, the 3000th eText was
the third volume of A l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs (In the Shadow of
Young Girls in Flower), by Marcel Proust (published in 1919), in French, its
original language.

Released in October 2001, the 4000th eText was The French Immortals Series, in
English. Published in 1905 by Maison Mazarin, Paris, this book is an anthology
of short fictions by authors belonging to