A Short History of EBooks Part 2

But digitizing books remains the priority, and there is a big demand, as confirmed by the tens of thousands of books that are downloaded every day.

For example, on July 31, 2005, there were 37,532 downloads for the day, 243,808 downloads for the week, and 1,154,765 downloads for the month.

On May 6, 2007, there were 89,841 downloads for the day, 697,818 downloads for the week, and 2,995,436 downloads for the month.

On May 8, 2008, there were 115,138 downloads for the day, 714,323 downloads for the week, and 3,055,327 downloads for the month.

These numbers are the downloads from ibiblio.org (at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill), the main distribution site, which also hosts the website gutenberg.org. The Internet Archive is the backup distribution site and provides unlimited disk s.p.a.ce for storage and processing. Project Gutenberg has 40 mirror sites in many countries and is seeking new ones. It also encourages the use of P2P for sharing its books.

People can also choose ebooks from the "Top 100", i.e. the top 100 ebooks and the top 100 authors for the previous day, the last 7 days and the last 30 days.

Project Gutenberg ebooks can also help bridge the "digital divide". They can be read on an outdated computer or a second- hand PDA costing just a few dollars. Solar-powered PDAs offer a good solution in remote regions.

It is hoped machine translation software will be able to convert the books from one to another of 100 languages. In ten years from now (August 2009), machine translation may be judged 99% satisfactory - research is active on that front - allowing for the reading of literary cla.s.sics in a choice of many languages. Project Gutenberg is also interested in combining translation software and human translators, somewhat as OCR software is now combined with the work of proofreaders.

38 years after the beginning of Project Gutenberg, Michael Hart describes himself as a workaholic who has devoted his entire life to his project. He considers himself a pragmatic and farsighted altruist. For years he was regarded as a nut but now he is respected. He wants to change the world through freely- available ebooks that can be used and copied endlessly, and reading and culture for everyone at minimal cost.

Project Gutenberg's mission can be stated in eight words: "To encourage the creation and distribution of ebooks," by everybody, and by every possible means, while implementing new ideas, new methods and new software.

1990: THE WEB BOOSTS THE INTERNET

= [Overview]

The internet was born in 1974 with the creation of TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol) by Vinton Cerf and Bob Kahn. It began spreading in 1983. The internet got its first boost with the invention of the web by Tim Berners- Lee at CERN (European Center for Nuclear Research) in 1989-90, and its second boost with the release of the first browser Mosaic in 1993. The internet could now be used by anyone, and not only by computer literate users. There were 100 million internet users in December 1997, with one million new users per month, and 300 million internet users in December 2000. In summer 2000, the number of non-English-speaking users reached 50%, and went on to increase then. According to Netcraft, the number of websites went from one million (April 1997) to 10 million (February 2000), 20 million (September 2000), 30 million (July 2001), 40 million (April 2003), 50 million (May 2004), 60 million (March 2005), 70 million (August 2005), 80 million (April 2006), 90 million (August 2006) and 100 million (November 2006).

= The internet and the web

When Project Gutenberg began in July 1971, the internet was just a glimmer. The pre-internet was created in the U.S. in 1969, as a network set up by the Pentagon. The internet took off in 1974 with the creation of TCP/IP by Vinton Cerf and Bob Kahn. It expanded as a network linking U.S. governmental agencies, universities and research centers.

After the invention of the web in 1989-90 by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN (European Center for Nuclear Research), Geneva, Switzerland, and the release of the first browser, Mosaic (the ancestor of Netscape), in November 1993, the internet began spreading, first in the U.S. because of investments made by the government, then in North America, and then worldwide. Because the web was easy to use, linking doc.u.ments and pages with hyperlinks, the internet could now be used by anyone, and not only by computer literate users. There were 100 million internet users in December 1997, with one million new users per month, and 300 million internet users in December 2000.

Why did the internet spread in North America first? The U.S.

and Canada were leading the way in computer science and communication technology, and a connection to the internet mainly through a phone line - was much cheaper than in most countries. In Europe, avid internet users needed to navigate the web at night - when phone rates by the minute were cheaper - to cut their expenses. In 1998, some users in France, Italy and Germany launched a movement to boycott the internet one day per week, for internet providers and phone companies to set up a special monthly rate. This action paid off, and providers began to offer "internet rates".

Christiane Jadelot, a French engineer at INaLF-Nancy (INaLF: National Inst.i.tute for the French Language), wrote in July 1998: "I began to really use the internet in 1994, with a browser called Mosaic. I found it a very useful way of improving my knowledge of computers, linguistics, literature...

everything. I was finding the best and the worst, but as a discerning user, I had to sort it all out, and make choices. I particularly liked the software for email, file transfers and dial-up connections. At that time I had problems with a program called Paradox and character sets that I couldn't use. I tried my luck and threw out a question in a specialist news group. I got answers from all over the world. Everyone seemed to want to solve my problem!"

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was founded in October 1994 to develop interoperable technologies (specifications, guidelines, software, and tools) for the web, for example specifications for markup languages (HTML, XML, and others), and to act as a forum for information, commerce, communication and collective understanding.

The "Technorealism" movement started on the web in March 1998.

Technorealism was "an attempt to a.s.sess the social and political implications of technologies so that we might all have more control over the shape of our future. The heart of the technorealist approach involves a continuous critical examination of how technologies - whether cutting-edge or mundane - might help or hinder us in the struggle to improve the quality of our personal lives, our communities, and our economic, social, and political structures" (excerpt from the website). The doc.u.ment Technorealism Overview was approved by hundreds of people signing their names. It stated that, "regardless of how advanced our computers become, we should never use them as a subst.i.tute for our own basic cognitive skills of awareness, perception, reasoning, and judgment."

= The internet and other media

In 1998, people were also wondering whether the print media and the internet would be antagonistic or complementary. Would the internet swallow up the print media? Would the internet get the top place in the hearts of people buying books or subscribing to magazines? The internet was about to change books and other media in a sweeping way, like the printing presses in the past.

Authors, booksellers, librarians, printers, publishers and translators were watching the storm, or partic.i.p.ating in it in heated debates on copyright issues and distribution control.

In some African countries, the internet meant more information.

The number of newspapers was very low compared to the population figures. Each copy was read by at least twenty people. In January 1997, during the Symposium on Multimedia Convergence organized by the International Labor Organization (ILO), Wilfred Kiboro, managing director of Nation Printers and Publishers, in Kenya, expressed the idea of a printing system through a satellite internet connection, instead of carrying newspapers every day by truck all over the country. This printing system would mean cheaper distribution costs, and a drop in the price of newspapers.

Did the internet compete with television and reading? In Quebec, 30.7% of the population was connected to the internet in March 1998. A poll showed that 28.8% of internet users were watching television less than before, but only 12.1% were reading less. As stated by the online magazine Multimedium in April 1998, this was "rather encouraging for the department of Culture and Communications which has the double task of furthering the development of information highways... and reading!"

According to a survey for Online MSNBC in February 1998, the internet - as a new medium - was well liked, matching and sometimes surpa.s.sing other media. Merrill Brown, editor-in- chief of Online MSNBC, wrote in Internet Wire of February 1998: "The internet news usage behavior pattern is shaping up similar to broadcast television in terms of weekday use, and is used more than cable television, newspapers and magazines during that same period of time. Additionally, on Sat.u.r.days, the internet is used more than broadcast television, radio or newspapers, and on a weekly basis has nearly the same hours of use as newspapers." People were spending 2.4 hours per week reading magazines, 3.5 hours surfing the web, 3.6 hours reading newspapers, 4.5 hours listening the radio, 5 hours watching cable TV, and 5.7 hours watching broadcast TV.

Jean-Pierre Cloutier was the editor of "Chroniques de Cyberie", a weekly French-language online report of internet news. When interviewed in fall 1997 by Francois Lemelin, chief-editor of "L'Alb.u.m", a magazine from Club Macintosh of Quebec, he expressed his views about the internet as a medium: "I think the medium is going to continue being essential, and then give birth to original, precise, specific services, by which time we will have found an economic model of viability. For information cybermedia like "Chroniques de Cyberie" as well as for info- services, community and online public services, electronic commerce, distance learning, the post-modern policy which is going to change the elected representatives / princ.i.p.als, in fact, everything is coming around. (...) Concerning the relationship with other media, I think we need to look backwards. Contrary to the words of alarmists in previous times, radio didn't kill music or the entertainment industry any more than the cinema did. Television didn't kill radio or cinema. Nor did home videos. When a new medium arrives, it makes some room for itself, the others adjust, there is a transition period, then a 'convergence'. What is different with the internet is the interactive dimension of the medium and its possible impact. We are still thinking about that, we are watching to see what happens.

Also, as a medium, the net allows the emergence of new concepts in the field of communication, and on the human level, too - even for non-connected people. I remember when McLuhan arrived, at the end of the sixties, with his concept of 'global village'

basing itself on television and telephone, and he was predicting data exchange between computers. There were people, in Africa, without television and telephone, who read and understood McLuhan. And McLuhan changed things in their vision of the world. The internet has the same effect. It gives rise to some thinking on communication, private life, freedom of expression, the values we are attached to, and those we are ready to get rid of, and it is this effect which makes it such a powerful, important medium."

= "The dream behind the web"

Tim Berners-Lee invented the web in 1990. Pierre Ruetschi, a journalist for the Swiss daily Tribune de Geneve, asked him in December 1997: "Seven years later, are you satisfied with the way the web has evolved?". He answered that, if he was pleased with the richness and diversity of information, the web still lacked the power planned in its original design. He would like "the web to be more interactive, and people to be able to create information together", and not only to be consumers of information. The web was supposed to become a "medium for collaboration, a world of knowledge that we share."

In a short essay posted on his webpage, Tim Berners-Lee wrote in May 1998: "The dream behind the web is of a common information s.p.a.ce in which we communicate by sharing information. Its universality is essential: the fact that a hypertext link can point to anything, be it personal, local or global, be it draft or highly polished. There was a second part of the dream, too, dependent on the web being so generally used that it became a realistic mirror (or in fact the primary embodiment) of the ways in which we work and play and socialize. That was that once the state of our interactions was online, we could then use computers to help us a.n.a.lyse it, make sense of what we are doing, where we individually fit in, and how we can better work together." (excerpt from: "The World Wide Web: A very short personal history", available on the W3C website)

1993: THE ONLINE BOOKS PAGE IS A LIST OF FREE EBOOKS

= [Overview]

Founded in 1993 by John Mark Ockerbloom while he was a student at Carnegie Mellon University (in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), The Online Books Page is "a website that facilitates access to books that are freely readable over the internet. It also aims to encourage the development of such online books, for the benefit and edification of all." John Mark first maintained this page on the website of the School of Computer Science of Carnegie Mellon University. In 1999, he moved it to its present location at the University of Pennsylvania Library, where he is a digital library planner and researcher. The Online Books Page offered links to 12,000 books in 1999, 20,000 books in 2003 (including 4,000 books published by women), 25,000 books in 2006, and 30,000 books in 2008. The books "have been auth.o.r.ed, placed online, and hosted by a wide variety of individuals and groups throughout the world", with 7,000 books from Project Gutenberg. The FAQ also gives copyright information about most countries in the world with links to further reading.

= [In Depth]

In 1993, the web was still in its infancy, with Mosaic as its first browser. John Mark Ockerbloom was a graduate student at the School of Computer Science (CS) of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania). He created The Online Books Page as "a website that facilitates access to books that are freely readable over the internet. It also aims to encourage the development of such online books, for the benefit and edification of all." (excerpt from the website)

In September 1998, John Mark wrote in an email interview: "I was the original webmaster here at CMU CS, and started our local web in 1993. The local web included pages pointing to various locally developed resources, and originally The Online Books Page was just one of these pages, containing pointers to some books put online by some of the people in our department.

(Robert Stockton had made web versions of some of Project Gutenberg's texts.) After a while, people started asking about books at other sites, and I noticed that a number of sites (not just Gutenberg, but also Wiretap and some other places) had books online, and that it would be useful to have some listing of all of them, so that you could go to one place to download or view books from all over the net. So that's how my index got started. I eventually gave up the webmaster job in 1996, but kept The Online Books Page, since by then I'd gotten very interested in the great potential the net had for making literature available to a wide audience. At this point there are so many books going online that I have a hard time keeping up (and in fact have a large backlog of books to list). But I hope to keep up my online books works in some form or another.

I am very excited about the potential of the internet as a ma.s.s communication medium in the coming years. I'd also like to stay involved, one way or another, in making books available to a wide audience for free via the net, whether I make this explicitly part of my professional career, or whether I just do it as a spare-time volunteer."

In 1998, there was an index of 7,000 etexts that could be browsed by author, t.i.tle or subject. There were also pointers to significant directories and archives of online texts, and to special exhibits. From the main search page, users could search in four types of media: books, music, art, and video.

"Along with books, The Online Books Page is also now listing major archives of serials (such as magazines, published journals, and newspapers) (...). Serials can be at least as important as books in library research. Serials are often the first places that new research and scholarship appear. They are sources for firsthand accounts of contemporary events and commentary. They are also often the first (and sometimes the only) place that quality literature appears. (For those who might still quibble about serials being listed on a 'books page', back issues of serials are often bound and reissued as hardbound 'books'.)" (excerpt from the 1998 website)

In 1999, after graduating from Carnegie Mellon with a Ph.D. in computer science, John Mark moved to work as a digital library planner and researcher at the University of Pennsylvania Library. He also moved The Online Books Page there, kept it as clear and simple, and went on expanding it.

The Online Books Page offered links to 12,000 ebooks in 1999, 20,000 ebooks in 2003 (including 4,000 ebooks published by women), 25,000 ebooks in 2006, and 30,000 ebooks in 2008. The books "have been auth.o.r.ed, placed online, and hosted by a wide variety of individuals and groups throughout the world", with 7,000 books from Project Gutenberg. The FAQ lists copyright information about most countries in the world, with links to further reading.