nt 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 analyse 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 authored,
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 depar