Named for the same Gutenberg who invented the printing press, Project Gutenberg is making literature accessible in much the same way that books produced on a press became affordable to a much larger range of the 15th century public. Johannes Gutenberg’s invention revolutionized the making of books and contributed significantly to human literacy. The folks at Project Gutenberg (PG) are using computer technology to make literacy accessible to the 21st century public. We are living in the new Renaissance!

Project Gutenberg was launched in 1971 by founder Michael Hart, who started by typing out the US Declaration of Independence so that anyone who had a computer could access it. Over 20,000 free books are now available through the Project Gutenberg catalogue, and a total of more than 100,000 are accessible through their affiliates and partners (plus a whole lot more folks have computers!!!) You can expect to find mostly e-texts on the site, though some books are available in human-read or computer generated audio versions. For the musicians out there, some PG volunteers have begun to work on making sheet music available as well.

Texts generally come in a zipped or non-zipped *.txt format (the so-called “plain vanilla text”.) There are also some in HTML format that can be read in your favourite browser. This is nice when a book contains illustrations. Some texts are released in Plucker format, so the books can be read on a handheld device. Gutenberg texts are often the source for materials produced by other wonderful sites, like those at Librivox.

Most books are in English, but books are available in other languages as well. There are presently 11 languages other than English in which PG has at least 50 books, however availability depends mainly on volunteers. PG projects begin with somebody finding a public domain text they want to produce, and on a small team of folks being competent enough in the language to proofread the scans. So, if you want foreign language texts from PG the best thing to do is help out!

PG is a 501(c)(3) charity registered in the state of Mississippi. (If you would like to donate to PG your contribution is tax deductible in the United States.) Although donations help to keep the site online, it is volunteers who are the backbone of the project. Distributed Proofreaders supplies most of the PG texts. Volunteers scan, proofread and format texts for distribution. If you are interested in becoming a volunteer just head over to the site. No experience necessary! They’ll teach you what you need to know

Gutenberg texts are available in a full range of subjects, both fiction and non-fiction. To locate literature for kids at Project Gutenberg begin by searching the catalogue for the Library of Congress (LoCC) heading “PZ Language and Literatures: Juvenile et belles lettres” in the drop-down list. You can also find a wealth of turn-of-the-century readers, grammar and spelling texts, math, history & geography books for home-schooling purposes among the PG offerings. If you have a specific subject in mind use the keyword search. Another good place to look for these texts in An Old-Fashioned Education, which as I mentioned in a previous review, lists books by school subject.

Reviews of the Baldwin Project and Librivox complete this survey of
free children’s literature online

This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

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