Using eBooks to Break Down the Bars of Ignorance and

Illiteracy University of Illinois, LIS Room 46

Monday, January 28, 10:00 AM

Speaker Michael S. Hart Founder, Project

Gutenberg Co-Founder, World

eBook Fair Project Gutenberg Literary

Archive Foundation

“If what you did yesterday

still seems big to you today,

then your goals for tomorrow

are not yet big enough.”

Ling Fu Yu, circa 600 B.C.

My goal in talking to you today

is to change the world. . . .

As much as The Gutenberg Pressand The Literacy

Revolution,and The Scientific

Revolution,and The Industrial

Revolution,that inevitably

followed.

“There is no force greater than

an idea whose time has come.”

“There is no army with a power

greater than that of an idea

whose time has come.”

What Do You Want Books For?

Would you want:A Cadillac if everyone could have one?A Mansion if everyone could have one?A billion dollars if everyone could have one?

A million books if we all could have them?A billion books if we all could have them?A tera/petabyte if everyone could have one?

Terabytes under $200, single drives at $299.

What is an eBook?

Just because the new eBooks are Japanese…Don’t let that fool you into ignoring them….Who invented the transistor? Wright&GreenYet the first transistor radios were Japanese!

Just a decade after WWII Reconstruction!!!Because WE ignored the transistor/steel etc.Globalism means we can’t ignore things now!

What is an eBook?

An eBook is what you would get if you satdown and typed in a book.

“Ceci n’est pas une pipe.”[This is not a pipe, Rene Magritte, Belgium]

A picture of a book is not an eBook, thoughmost importantly, you CAN read it, but youcannot search, quote, edit, etc., etc., etc.

Who makes eBooks?

Anyone with computer access.

After an eBook is published onProject Gutenberg a billion+ canhave access the very next day.

+3 billion if you count cell phones!!!

Books! Books!! Books!!!

Soar with the birds in the mind of Leonardo,Travel the deeps with Verne in the NautilusOr with Rickover’s crew under the North Pole.Or on the South Pole with Perry and Amundsen,Or on top of Mount Everest with Hillary and Norgay.

Voyage to the Moon with Verne and Armstrong,Dialog with Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Archimedes,

Or conquer the world with their student, Alexander,

Books are limited only by the human imagination. . . .

Why I don’t believe in footnotes

I don’t want you to believe me.

I want you to believe yourself.

Don’t believe in footnotes.

Don’t believe in authority.

Do the research yourself!!!

You will understand ONLY if

you see multiple points of view.

MAY THE SOURCE BE WITH YOU

http://worldebookfair.comhttp://www.gutenberg.orghttp://www.gutenberg.cc

http://www.gutenberg.net.au

http://www.pge.rasko.nethttp://www.gutenberg.ca

http://www.pgdp.net

GIVE ME A LEVER LONG ENOUGH

… A DECENT PLACE TO PUT IT

…AND I WILL MOVE THE WORLD

ARCHIMEDES

TODAY WE WILL TALK ABOUT

SOME OF THAT LEVERAGE

THE FIRST 3 RULES OF COMPUTERS

RULE #1 BACK UP YOUR DATA!

RULE #2 BACK UP YOUR DATA!!

RULE #3 BACK UP YOUR DATA!!!

THE SYLLOGISM OF SOCRATES

Major Premise:ALL HUMANS ARE MORTAL:

Minor Premise:SOCRATES IS A HUMAN:

Conclusion:THUS: SOCRATES IS MORTAL

HTTP://WORLDEBOOKFAIR.COMJULY 4 THROUGH AUGUST 4

YOU CAN DOWNLOAD

1,000,000+ FREE eBOOKS

2006=330,000 2007=820,000

2008 = OVER ONE MILLION

HTTP://WWW.GUTENBERG.ORGHTTP://WWW.GUTENBERG.CCHTTP://WWW.GUTENBERG.CAHTTP://WWW.GUTENBERG.NET

ALL YEAR ROUND 24/7/365

YOU CAN DOWNLOAD

100,000+ FREE eBOOKS

POSSIBLE TOPICS FOR TODAY

A ONE BILLION BOOK LIBRARYONE THOUSAND TIMES THE RAMTHREE BILLION CELL PHONES

10 BOOKS TO 100,000 IN 15 YEARS

10,000 IN 2007 FOR EACH 1 IN 1991

DO THAT AGAIN, IT’S A BILLION

A One Billion Book Library!!!

4 million eBooks translated into 250 languages 5 million eBooks translated into 200 languages 6.7 million eBooks translated into 150 languages

10 million eBooks translated into 100 languages

15 million eBooks translated into 67 languages 20 million eBooks translated into 50 languages 25 million eBooks translated into 40 languages There are 250 languages spoken by over 1 million

Books are limited only by the human imagination. . .

1,000 Times the RAM!!! 8 Megabyte Flash Drives Are Only 6-7 Years Old

The Original IBM 8M Memory Key Was $60 in 2001 Last Year I Bought 8G Flash drives for the same $60

With Just One More Iteration,..8 Terabytes for $60!!!

4G = 10,000 eBooks 8T = The Entire Public Domain

[Text only, 20 million books of 1 million characters.]

1,000 Times the RAM!!! 8 Terabyte Flash Drives Will Mean More Backups!

You Will Be Able To WEAR Every Word In All Of

THE ENTIRE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS Local Storage Is The ONLY Way To Insure Access!!!

The Library of Congress Claims 100+ Million Items,

but most of these are not full length book titles. . . .

3 BILLION CELL PHONES!!!

2007 will see HALF the potential market filled. . . .

In another year or two it will be TWO-THIRDS!

Another year or two more will see THREE-FOURTHS

Another year or two more will see SEVEN-EIGHTHS

Local Access: The ONLY Way To Insure Free Access

Limited Distributionversus

Unlimited Distribution

• It’s better if _I_ have it, and YOU do NOT.• Artificial Scarcity, a la Prof. Kingsfield• What if EVERYone could have EVERYthing?• Is there any reason everyone with a computer

couldn’t / shouldn’t have every word ever written

from thousands of years ago to 15 years ago?

MAY THE SOURCE BE WITH YOU

We want YOU to have the source,

the source of knowledge,the source of information,

the source of all libraries.

We want you to OWN civilization,

NOT for civilization to own YOU.

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Before the Gutenberg Press the average

person owned 0 books.

Before Project Gutenberg the average

person owned 0 libraries. Today I Am Wearing Enough RAM Around My Neck

To Hold Every Book In TWO Average U.S. Public Libraries 30,000 .zipped eBook files Per 12 Gigabytes of RAM [With the average book having one million characters.]

How many of you realize that a

terabyte holds one million books?

One million plain text books, just

what you would get if you typed in a

favorite book as plain email.

Not MSWord files, not .pdf files, these take 10x more. 100,000 files instead of 1,000,000. Text files zip nicely and will usually give you 2.5 million per terabyte.This very month we saw outboard terabytes @ $217 w/shipping!

STAR TREK REPLICATORSLIVING ON YOUR DESKTOP All the functions of the Star Trek Replicators, communicators and transporters are now in various desktop systems for well under $10,000.

You can enter a book and ALL people, for the rest of HISTORY, as we know it, can download that book anywhere they can get online.

• What other way can WE do something that will still be here 10 years or 100 years from now???

Affordable Terabyte Libraries

• $180 can add a terabyte to your system• 1 TB = 1 million books of 1 MB per book• And 2.5 million books in compressed formats! Those terabytes will get cheaper until we all we’re all seeing these prices on petabytes and exabytes. My first 5MB drive, a Seagate ST-506, cost $3,000 as an add-on to the first Apple ][ systems. $3,000! $3,000 now buys computers with sixteen terabytes! That’s millions of times more for each dollar. . . .NOT ACCOUNTING FOR INFLATED DOLLARS

PROJECT GUTENBERGMISSION STATEMENTS

• Break Down the Bars of Ignorance and Illiteracy

• Encourage the Creation and Distribution of eBooks

• Project Gutenberg Needs YOU!!!• To Bring More Books To More People!!!

What Project GutenbergDoes NOT Do

• PG does not select the titles, they are each chosen by the volunteers who start them.

• PG does not choose the fonts you read in. These are set in whatever programs you use.

• PG does not recommend particular pieces of hardware or software, the choice is yours.

• Obvious exceptions are .pdf files, etc.

“A people cannot hope to be both ignorant and free.”

Thomas Jefferson

Technological Publishing Revolution!More books were printed in the first 50 yearsof The Gutenberg Press, ~1450 – 1500, than in all the thousands of years of previously recorded human history.

More books will be created as eBook files the 1st 50 years of the Third Millenniumthan in all of previously recorded history.

If We Can Provide a Billion

eBooks to a Billion People,

that is a QUINTILLION eBooks• One billion times one billion

equals

ONE QUINTILLION

• Personally, I’ll settle for a quadrillion

Build a better worldfrom the bottom up,

not from the top down.

Forget about funding.

Just get out there and do it yourself.

How To Optimize eBookness

• 1 Billion Cell Phones Are Made Every Year• 3 Billion Cell Phones By The End of 2007!

• .1 Billion Computers Are Made Every Year

• Plus Millions of PDA’s, PPC’s, iPods, etc.All These Should Be Supported In A Wide Variety Of Formats, Styles, Fonts, etc.

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• Project Gutenberg’s Growth Record from 10 eBooks to 10,000

• 1990/1991/1992/1993/1994/1995/1996/1997/1998/1999/2000/2001/2002/2003 ^####• 10,000>10/03 10K• 9,500>9/03 9,500• 9,000>8/03 9,000• 8,500>7/03 8,500• 8,000>5/03 8,000• 7,500>3/03 7,500• 7,000>1/03 7,000• 6,500>12/02 6,500• 6,000 >9/02 6,000• 5,500 >7/02 5,500• 5,000 >4/02 5,000• 4,500 >2/02 4,500• 4,000>10/01 4,000• 3,500 >5/01 3,500• 3,000 > 12/00 3,000• 2,500 > 8/00 2,500• 2,000 > 12/99 2,000• 1,500 > 10/98 1,500• 1,000 > 8/97 1,000• 500 > 4/96 500• 100 >12/93 <<<December 10, 1993 100• 10 > 12/90 10• 1990/1991/1992/1993/1994/1995/1996/1997/1998/1999/2000/2001/2002/2003 ^####

Project Gutenberg’s Growth Record from 10 eBooks to 20,000• 12341234123412341234123412341234123412341234123412341234123412341234• -90--91--92--93--94--95--96--97--98--99--00--01--02--03--04--05--06-• 25,000 October 21, 2007 25K >10.07 >25K• 20,000 June 21, 2006 20K >06/06 20K• 19,000 March 27, 2006 19K > 03/06 19K• Added ~216 from PG of Europe January 01, 2006 18K > 01/06 18K• 17K > 08/05 17K• 16K > 04/05 16K• 15K > 01/05 15K• 14K > 10/04 14K• 13K > 06/04 13K• 12K > 03/04 12K• 11K > 01/04 11K• >>> October 15, 2003 >>> 10K > 10/03 *10K*• 9,000 > 8/03 9,000• 8,000 > 5/03 8,000• Note this graph is in 1/4 years 7,000 > 1/03 7,000• 6,000 > 9/02 6,000• 5,000 > 4/02 5,000• Added PG Australia in August, 2001 4,000> 10/01 4,000• 3,000> 12/00 3,000• 2,000 > 12/99 2,000• 1,000 > 8/97 1,000• 100 >12/93 <<<December 10, 1993 100• 10>12/90 10• -90--91--92--93--94--95--96--97--98--99--00--01--02--03--04--05--06- YEARS• 12341234123412341234123412341234123412341234123412341234123412341234 QUARTERS

Quotations to Consider

“There is no end to the great things we

can accomplish

if we don’t worry about who gets the

credit.”

Anonymous

“Project Gutenberg has taken the Internet to

the next level.”

Vint Cerf

People who say it cannot be done

Should not interrupt the people who are

doing it.

“The person who says it cannot be done,

should not interrupt the person who is

doing it.”

Ancient Chinese Proverb

“Better to light a single candle

than to curse the darkness.”

“Teach the ignorant as much as you can,society is culpable in not providing instruction for all,

and it must answer for the night which it produces.

If the soul is left in darkness sins will be committed.

The guilty one is not he who commits the sin,but he who causes the darkness.”

• Victor Hugo

Before the Gutenberg Press the average

person owned 0 books.

Before Project Gutenberg the average

person owned 0 libraries.

HOW MANY eBOOKS???

• One Site = Over 1 eBook Per Second• http://www.gutenberg.org• Averages one eBook/second for years

• There are 100’s or 1,000’s of PG sites

• Your Site Could Be Next!!!

In 1955 the cost of the average paperback was 26 cents, equal tothe average gallon of gasoline, both prices

including tax.

Today the average paperback cost is approximately 10

dollars.

The media are full of stories about the high price of gas at $3.

Have you ever seen the media mention book hyperinflation?

Here is just one obvious example:

“Bond. . .James Bond” 007

When James Bond first came to the world of paperback readersjust over 50 years

ago, price ofthe average paperback

was $.26,and that included the

tax. . . .

Today with the new James Bond

has come new paperback books.

If you go to your local Borders

or Barnes & Noble, you will see

and entire rack of them over $15,

and that includes the tax. . . .

WHAT IF GAS WAS $15???

The Five Information Ages

1450 – 1710 The Gutenberg Press

1830 – 1831 High Speed Steam Press

Circa 1900’s High Speed Electric Presses

1960’s – 1970’s The Xerox Machine

Modern Times – The Internet/The Web

COPYRIGHTTHE WAR AGAINST

INDEPENDENT PUBLISHING AND REPUBLISHING

1709 Anti-Gutenberg Press1831 Anti-Steam Powered Press1909 Anti-Sears Catalog, Electric Press1976 Anti-Xerox Machine1998 Anti-Internet

REPLICATORS

• Fax me a pepperoni with double cheese

• Print out a Ferrari and drive away in it

• Diamond Age, by Neal StephensonEngines of Creation, by Eric K. Drexler

• Reprap, The First Home Replicators

The First World eBook Fair

Gave away ~30 million eBooks

from July 4 to August 4, 2006

http://www.worldebookfair.com

The Second World eBook Fair

presents 820,000 free eBooks

from July 4 to August 4, 2007

Twice as many free eBooks as in 2006

http://www.worldebookfair.com

Bigger Better

Faster More

Bigger Better

Servers Searches

More eBooks

Faster More

Wires Downloads

Week 1

Week 2

WorldeBookFair

NetworkTraffic

Weeks 1 + 2

July 2006

What’s in the Collection?

• Now• For the future

– More languages– Translations into 100 languages– Difficult works: mathematics classics, botany and physiology. Tables and figures.

– “Complete works”

How to get involved

• Visit www.gutenberg.org for HOWTOs and FAQs

• Join Distributed Proofreadershttp://www.pgdp.net

• Choose a book, and digitize it!• Join our mailing lists: http://lists.pglaf.org

• Fix an eBook! Email errata@pglaf.org

How Can You Help?

• Consider eBooks for all types of library needs: – Reference– Cataloging & acquisitions– Free online access to eBooks– Volunteer opportunities

• Be educated about eBook differences:– Licensing issues: really free?– Re-use and fair use: really a book?– Cost, especially compared to print

“If what you did yesterday

still seems big to you today,

then your goals for tomorrow

are not yet big enough.”

Ling Fu Yu, circa 600 B.C.

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