Project Gutenberg (1971-2005)

"Project Gutenberg (1971-2005)" by Marie Lebert is a historical telling from the early 2000s of a groundbreaking endeavor to make literature accessible to all. It follows the journey of Project Gutenberg, a pioneering digital library, detailing their mission to freely distribute public domain texts. Starting with Michael Hart's inspired vision in 1971, and early digital versions of pivotal documents such as The United States Declaration of Independence and The Bible, the book follows decades of growth. The book spotlights key moments, from the growing collection of eBooks to the impactful contributions of volunteers in digitizing and refining texts with Distributed Proofreaders. By 2005, the project's catalog included over 16,000 eBooks in various languages, pushing ever onwards toward a grand ambition to house a million eBooks, driven by a strong commitment to making literary history universally available and preserving it for posterity.