Vol. 1. No. 1 INT-1 April 1994
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On the Internet

Project Gutenberg: A Description

[Editor's note. At the request of Dr. Hart, we are leaving this description in its original, unformatted state.]

Michael Hart, Professor of Electronic Text Executive Director of Project Gutenberg Etext Illinois Benedictine College, Lisle, IL 60532 No official connection to U. of Illinois--UIUC hart@uiucvmd.bitnet or hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu Project Gutenberg is dedicated to the effort of increasing education and literacy around the world. Project Gutenberg has been encouraging the development of Etext for the past 22 years in all aspects of Electronic Texts: from the simplest posting of short works in the public domain to the largest and most complex commercially copyrighted works. These efforts are designed to encourage the creation and distribution of Etexts in all manners, all sizes, all formats to all people. Project Gutenberg now has over 100 Etexts on-line, including two editions of the Bible's 66 books and over 40 Shakespeare plays, poems, etc. which count as only one book for each Bible and for a Complete Shakespeare. Your comments and suggestions on the books are most appreciated, so we may continue the improvement process . Project Gutenberg Etexts are currently available on most of the major networks, computer bulletin boards, via mailing disks, and via satellites. In addition to its own Etext production, Project Gutenberg is a reviewer and distributor of Etext information for related jobs, products, search engines, etc. We are proud to have announced, at the request of WordCruncher, the very first Etext CD, at the American Library Association's Mid-Winter Conference in Chicago on January 6th, 1990, and to have continued in the tradition of announcing and demonstrating such products over the years. Project Gutenberg has been releasing Plain Vanilla ASCII Etexts on the Internet and its previous incarnations since about 1971. The goal of Project Gutenberg is to encourage the creation, and unlimited distribution, of some 10,000 Etexts by the end of the year 2001. Currently [1993] four books per month are scheduled for release, which doubles to eight books per month in 1994 and sixteen in 1995, etc.[-1-] The books fall mainly into about half a dozen categories: Light Literature: books for the whole family, such that parent or child can each bring the other to the computer to "Read More About It" as the Library of Congress Program puts it. Examples of Light Literature are often scheduled to match the presenting of movies or television programs on the same subject, such that kids are more likely to be currently familiar with the books. Examples: Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Anne of Green Gables Heavy Literature: books for the more serious readers requiring a greater commitment to reading and studying the materials: Examples: Paradise Lost and Regained, Moby Dick, and Descartes Reference: Roget's Thesaurus, World Factbooks, Census Figures, the NAFTA treaty, the Consumer Price Index, math constants Computers: Email 101, Zen and the Art of the Internet, as well as Surfing the Internet, The Online World [Shareware] Science Fiction: H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, Flatland, etc. Plus releases scheduled for timely releases at Christmas, [such as Dickens' Christmas Carol and The Night Before Christmas] and Easter, [such as the Bible and the Apocrypha {upcoming}]. We are also planning a library of Etexts in French, German, and Latin as well as other languages. Project Runeberg in Swedish, etc. is doing the Scandinavian classics. These Etexts are originally released as Plain Vanilla ASCII and .zip files, and are then often translated into various mark-ups such as PostScript, Acrobat, TeX, HyperText, and all the rest. You can find the Project Gutenberg Etexts listed in most Gopher systems, as well as all the major FTP archives. All Project Gutenberg Etexts are prepared on a purely volunteer basis by hundreds of volunteers around the world, and most were released into the Public Domain [but not all]. The Project was and is entirely funded by the donations of text entry, proofing and copyright research, as well as by donations of hardware and software, and a little money from many of our readers, and from corporations interesting in promoting the world of Etext. If you want to volunteer, be sure we add your name; the volunteers have an additional listserver list. [-2-]More information available on request. We have had some problems with people not getting a reply, or getting one quickly enough. If you don't get the information you require within a few days a personal note to me should solve the problem. This address--dircompg@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu--is the official address to try first. Donations and requests for subscriptions to a paper edition of the Project Gutenberg Newsletter, and/or other requests for information on paper go to: Michael S. Hart, Professor of Electronic Text Executive Director of Project Gutenberg Etext Illinois Benedictine College, Lisle, IL 60532 No official connection to U of Illinois--UIUC hart@uiucvmd.bitnet or hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu If I don't answer in two days, please resend. It usually means I did not get/see your note. Project Gutenberg P. O. Box 2782 Champaign, IL 61825 We need your donations. ************************************************** General information about Project Gutenberg and the Project Gutenberg Etext are available as email/FTP. FTP (anonymous) mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu 128.174.201.12 (The FTP program has an invalid date/time stamper)! To get etexts, cd etext/etext91, 92 or 93 or 90 get filename.ext [bin first if binary] Use the "dir" command if you need to know file names and sizes. The Newsletters contain the most up to date index: To get the most current Newsletter and articles -- cd etext/articles get gutxxxx.xxx [example gutjan.94 for Jan. 94 or send email to listserv@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu or @uiucvmd containing the following line: sub gutnberg your name and you will be subscribed to the GUTNBERG listserver.[-3-] [INDEX100.GUT is the long for index of first 100.] [0INDEX.GUT in cd etext is updated every morning.] [get etext/articles/* {all files for more details}] To retrieve etexts via e-mail, first send the following line by itself to almanac@oes.orst.edu send gutenberg catalog then follow the instructions from the Almanac server in Oregon. You can also try FTPMAIL: FTPMail service which allows me to request FTP via EMail. The address is: ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com If you want to get a file in this way try sending your equivalent of the following message to the above address. You don't need a subject. If you are lucky you will receive your etext by email. I use Compuserve which has a 50K maximum file size which is why I have to request my files broken up into 50K chunks. connect 128.174.201.12 (this is the address of the ftp server) chdir etext/etext93 (this changes to the right directory) chunksize 50000 (this gives the maximum size file I can receive) get filenamr.txt (this is the file name and file type of the etext. I don't know if you can get binary files this way but it is worth a try) quit (this is self-explanatory) An Example of a Recent File: In commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Project Gutenberg announces: Jan 1994 Collected Articles of Frederick Douglass, a Slave [dugl210x.xxx] [-4-] ===================================================== You will find this file in /etext94 on mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu, anonymous ftp cd etext cd etext94 get filename.ext [type bin first for .zip files] Thank you for your time and consideration, Michael S. Hart, Professor of Electronic Text Executive Director of Project Gutenberg Etext Illinois Benedictine College, Lisle, IL 60532 No official connection to U of Illinois--UIUC hart @uiucvmd.bitnet or hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu [-5-]

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