BARBARA KLEIN: After attending an Independence Day celebration, Mr. Hart received a free copy of the Declaration of Independence. He decided to type the words of the document on the computer and share this text with the computer network. He decided that this was worth a hundred million dollars, because in the future hundreds of millions of people could use his copy of the Declaration of Independence.
This event marked the beginning of Project Gutenberg. Over the next ten years, Mr. Hart added the Bible, William Shakespeare’s plays and other texts to the project’s storage system.
MARIO RITTER: Mr. Hart said the goal of Project Gutenberg was to support the creation and spreading of e-books free of cost to computer users. He said this effort aimed to “break down the bars of ignorance and illiteracy.
Greg Newby is the head of the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. He says Mr. Hart’s philosophy behind the project was about helping people.
GREG NEWBY: “He had this idea that through literacy, through access to literature really, people could become literate. And then through literacy people could become educated, and through education people could empower themselves to have more successful lives and eventually participate in making the world a better place.”
MARIO RITTER: Today, Project Gutenberg contains more than thirty six thousand books. Most are no longer protected by copyright laws. Others are still protected by such laws, but were donated with the permission of the copyright owner. Project Gutenberg depends on volunteers to enter new books into its collection.
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2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25