generated a grand total of over
100,000 ebooks."

= From the past to the future

The bet made by Michael Hart in 1971 succeeded. But Project
Gutenberg's results are not only measured in numbers. The
results can also be measured in the major influence the project
has had. As the oldest producer of free books on the internet,
Project Gutenberg has inspired many other digital libraries,
for example Projekt Runeberg for classic Nordic (Scandinavian)
literature and Projekt Gutenberg-DE for classic German
literature, to name only two, which started respectively in
1992 and 1994.

Projekt Runeberg was the first Swedish digital library of books
from public domain, and a partner of Project Gutenberg. It was
initiated in December 1992 by the students' computer club
Lysator, in cooperation with Linkoeping University, as a
volunteer project to create and collect free electronic
editions of classic Nordic literature and art. Around 200
ebooks were available in full text in 1998. There was also a
list of 6,000 Nordic authors as a tool for further collection
development.

Projekt Gutenberg-DE was the first German digital library of
books from public domain, created in 1994 as a partner of
Project Gutenberg. Texts were available for online reading,
with one webpage for short texts and with several webpages -
one per chapter - for longer works. There was an alphabetic
list of authors and titles, and a short biography and
bibliography for each author.

Project Gutenberg keeps its administrative and financial
structure to the bare minimum. Its motto fits into three words:
"Less is more." The minimal rules give much space to volunteers
and to new ideas. The goal is to ensure its independence from
loans and other funding and from ephemeral cultural priorities,
to avoid pressure from politicians and others. The aim is also
to ensure respect for the volunteers, who can be confident
their work will be used not just for decades but for centuries.
Volunteers can network through mailing lists, weekly or monthly
newsletters, discussion lists, forums and wikis.

Donations are used to buy equipment and supplies, mostly
computers, scanners and blank CDs and DVDs. Founded in 2000,
the PGLAF (Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation) has
only three part-time employees.

More generally, Michael Hart should be given more credit as the
inventor of the electronic book (ebook). If we consider the
ebook in its etymological sense - that