Selute to a man, Who unknowingly gave me some brilliant hours of reading and solitude.
Regards On 9/15/11, Ketan Kothari <[email protected]> wrote: > Father of e-Books (Project Gutenberg) Dies > > > http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/sep/13/michael-hart-obituary?INTCMP=SRC > H > > > > Michael Hart obituary - He invented ebooks and made them freely available > through Project Gutenberg > http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page > > > > Article by Jack Schofield guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 13 September 2011 14.45 > BST Article history > > > > Michael Hart, who has died of a heart attack aged 64, referred to himself as > the "grandfather of ebooks", but his real aim was to change the world. In > 1971, he realised that electronic texts could be copied and distributed at > no cost, and he founded Project Gutenberg to make out-of-copyright books > freely and universally available. His mission was to "help break down the > bars of ignorance and illiteracy". > > > > Since this was in the pre-internet days of the early Arpanet, there were > only a couple of dozen computers on the network, but as Hart said, echoing > Confucius: "Even the greatest journeys start with but a single step." At the > end of Hart's journey, Project Gutenberg's aim was to distribute a billion > free ebooks: 10m books in 100 languages. > > > > The project started by accident, after a Fourth of July fireworks display. A > student at the University of Illinois, Hart had been given some free time on > the mainframe computer. "We were just coming up on the American bicentennial > and they put faux-parchment historical documents in with the groceries," he > said in 2002. "So, as I fumbled through my backpack for something to eat, I > found the US Declaration of Independence and had a lightbulb moment. I > thought for a while to see if I could figure out anything I could do with > the computer that would be more important than typing in the Declaration of > Independence, something that would still be there 100 years later, but > couldn't come up with anything, and so Project Gutenberg was born." > > > > Hart thus became the internet's first information provider, before the > internet had been invented. As he said later: "Project Gutenberg was just > one of those great combinations of luck and being the right person in the > right place at the right time." In the beginning, he typed every word > himself, originally on a Teletype terminal on to punched paper tape. After > the Declaration of Independence, John F Kennedy's inaugural address, > Lincoln's Gettysburg address and other civic documents, he started on the > King James Bible. It finally appeared online in 1989. The first novel was > Moby-Dick. > > > > For 17 years, "it was just me tilting at windmills," said Hart. He typed in > 313 books before the next breakthrough: he linked up with the University of > Illinois's new PC user group. With help from a colleague, Mark Zinzow, Hart > set up a mailing list to publicise his project, and started asking for > volunteers to contribute. By the end of the year, the e-library had grown to > about 1,600 titles. It was an early example of "crowdsourcing" and > paralleled the growth of personal computing and the open-source programming > movement. > > > > As volunteers took over the rapidly growing project, Hart set up the > non-profit Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation in 2000. With books > increasingly being scanned rather than retyped, Distributed Proofreaders was > set up, providing volunteers to check them. These scans now make up a large > proportion of the project's 36,000 texts. > > > > In an email interview with the journalist Richard Poynder in 2006, Hart > stated: "The biggest problem is the time it takes to do the necessary > copyright research before making an e-text. The next biggest is dealing with > the constant threat of lawsuits, which come in every year." > > > > In particular, the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (1998), which > extended US copyright terms by 20 years, had a devastating effect, shrinking > the public domain by, in Hart's view, a million books. He told Poynder: "We > spent nearly the entire 1980s working on an edition of Shakespeare that was > expected to go into the public domain, but failed to do so when the > copyright laws were changed." > > > > Hart was born in Tacoma, near Seattle, in Washington state. His father was > an accountant, and his mother - a former wartime codebreaker - was a > business manager at a department store. Both decided to retrain as teachers. > In 1958, the family moved to Urbana, Illinois, where his father taught > Shakespeare studies and his mother taught mathematics at the University of > Illinois. After various adventures and a stint in the army, where he served > in Korea, Hart enrolled at the university's Urbana-Champaign campus in 1971. > He graduated in two years. Then Project Gutenberg took over his life. > > > > He supported himself by doing odd jobs, and was extremely frugal. He told > Poynder: "It's hard for me to spend $10 on dinner; the average is well under > $5. I have no cable [TV] or cell phone. I ride a bicycle most of the time. I > also wear garage sale clothes; in fact I live just about totally on garage > sales." An unpaid appointment as adjunct professor at Illinois Benedictine > College helped him to solicit donations for his project. "I know that sounds > odd to most people, but I just never bought into the money system all that > much. I never spent it when I got it. It's all a matter of perspective; most > people spend the vast majority of their money on things I just don't care > about." > > > > Earlier this year, on 16 July, Hart wrote to supporters such as the Internet > Archive's Brewster Kahle to say he was "working to create a graceful exit" > from the project "without any of the repercussions that could take place > when I shuffle off this mortal coil". He was feeling his age, and planned to > move to Hawaii. > > > > Hart is survived by his mother, Alice, and his brother, Bennett. > > > > . Michael Stern Hart, digital archivist, born 8 March 1947; died 6 September > 2011 > > Register for AccessIndia convention 2011 at: > http://www.accessindia.org.in/harish/convention.htm > > Search for old postings at: > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ > > To unsubscribe send a message to > [email protected] > with the subject unsubscribe. > > To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please > visit the list home page at > http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in > > -- Regards Ekinath Khedekar Sr Mgr Corporate Strategy & Planning, Reliance Power Limited, I block, North wing, DAKC, New Mumbai Register for AccessIndia convention 2011 at: http://www.accessindia.org.in/harish/convention.htm Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ To unsubscribe send a message to [email protected] with the subject unsubscribe. 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