(NEF Interview).

September 1998 > Quote from John Mark Ockerbloom

John Mark Ockerbloom created the Online Books Page in 1993. He wrote in
1998: "I've gotten very interested in the great potential the net has
for making literature available to a wide audience. (...) I am very
excited about the potential of the internet as a mass 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" (NEF Interview).

September 1998 > Quote from Robert Beard

Robert Beard, founder of A Web of Online Dictionaries in 1995, wrote in
September 1998: "The web will be an encyclopedia of the world by the
world for the world. There will be no information or knowledge that
anyone needs that will not be available. The major hindrance to
international and interpersonal understanding, personal and
institutional enhancement, will be removed. It would take a wilder
imagination than mine to predict the effect of this development on the
nature of humankind" (NEF Interview). In January 2000, Robert Beard
co-founded yourDictionary, a major portal for languages.

October 1998 > An amendment to the U.S. copyright law

Each copyright legislation is more restrictive than the previous one. A
major blow for digital libraries was the amendment to the 1976
Copyright Act signed on October 27, 1998. As explained in July 1999 by
Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg: "Nothing will expire for
another 20 years. We used to have to wait 75 years. Now it is 95 years.
And it was 28 years (+ a possible 28-year extension, only on request)
before that, and 14 years (+ a possible 14-year extension) before that.
So, as you can see, this is a serious degrading of the public domain,
as a matter of continuing policy." The copyright went from an average
of 30 years in 1909 to an average of 95 years in 1998. From 1909 to
1998, it got an extension of 65 years. Only a book published before
1923 can be considered as belonging to the public domain.

1999 > The Rocket eBook was the first ebook reader

The Rocket eBook was launched in 1999 by NuvoMedia, in Palo Alto,
California, as the first dedicated ebook reader. Founded in 1997,
NuvoMedia wanted to become "the electronic book distribution solution,
by providing a networking infrastructure for publishers,