Project Gutenberg Needs YOU!!!
To Help Us Plan For The Next Decade
As We Head On To ONE MILLION TITLES
. . .AND BEYOND!!!
A Personal Note From The Founder
It's a bit ironic that last week we
announced eBook #9,000 and now this
week we have to announce that we do
not have enough money to survive 93
days that it should take to put out
our 10,000th eBook. . . .
Here Are The TOP 10 Ways To Help:
[Please don't hesitate to think of
more ways than these. . . .]
1. Music
2. Artwork
3. Movies
4. Poetry
5. More Languages
6. We Are Broke, Not That We Ever Aren't But. . .
7. PR, Media, Advertising, Contacts, Shmoozing
8. Progress Graphs and Statistics
9. Help With PT1 Of The Newsletter
10. Reaching 15% Of The World Population
***
1. Music
I would like to see Project Gutenberg provide a MIDI file score
[Musical Instrument Digital Interface] for all musical classics
from Beethoven, Back and Brahms to Tschaikowsky, Stravinsky and
Rachmaninoff; from Gregorian chants to the start of the Roaring
Twenties, and everything we can find in between.
Why?
Because I want every person in the future to be able to work on
conducting an entire orchestra, an orchestra that never misses,
notes or timing, piannissimo to fortissimo, allegro to minuet.
I would like to see people become literate in the musical sense
in same way we are helping people in the more traditional ways.
Someday I would like to see someone who has never even seen the
orchestra come in and lay down their score and say:
_I_ think Beethoven should be played THIS WAY!
Does anyone remember Bruno Martelli from FAME ?
2. Artwork
As above, I should like every person to have access to pictures
of all the great historical paintings, sculptures, mosaics, etc.
I would like to see people become literate in the artistic sense
in same way we are helping people in the more traditional ways.
Someday I would like to see someone who has never even seen the
artworks come in and lay down their work and say:
_I_ think another Impressionist might have painted THIS WAY!
3. Movies
This is a particularly tough one for two reasons:
A. The bandwidth is high
B. Copyright
We need someone to interface with archive.org's movie people,
and more. . . .
4. More Languages
As the Internet has reached the majority of the countries of
the world, and we seek to increase our readership from 1.5%
of the world population to 15%, we should work harder and
harder to include as many languages as we can.
This should include original books, translations, and the
translation of our web pages into more languages.
5. We Are Broke, Not That We Ever Aren't, But. . .
Irony: As Project Gutenberg moves from 9,000 to 10,000
eBooks in the next 4 months, we only have 2 months' budget
on hand. . .so right now it looks as if we will run out of
money in October. . . .
This month my assistant and I are working with no salary.
We might get paid later, if things start looking up.
We are going to need people to interface with the MAJOR
granting agencies to get a good run a million eBooks!!!
We should approach the Fortune 500, Computer 100, and
the 500 wealthiest people, too.
Can YOU help???
6. PR, Media, Advertising, Contacts, Shmoozing
Obviously, if we are to increase our readership from 1.5%
to 15% of the world population, we are not going to be
able to rely on the mostly word of mouth public relations
that have taken us this far. Even if we DO manage to get
to 1,000,000 eBooks, we won't be able to get them to 15%
of the world's population without some serious help. . .
not only to deliver them when people ask for them. . .but
just to let them know these books are available,
We need to find some people who can help us break through
the surface tension of the media world and help us give a
million eBooks to the audience of some television shows:
Leno, Letterman, Oprah, Regis, etc., etc., etc.
The funny part, of course, is that if we had been able to
charge even one cent per eBook, at a trillion of them, we
would have made 10 billion dollars, and THEY would be in
line trying to see US, rather than the other way around.
I always think that is SO totally ironic. . . .
We need YOUR help here!!!
7. Progress Graphs and Statistics
We need something with some visual impact to use in our Press Kit.
I've mentioned that printed books containing the Project Gutenberg library
would weigh as much as the average elephant, but in another year we won't
be able to find ANY elephant that weighs enough to balance them, so we are
going to need some new ways to demonstrate how many eBooks there are.
I have these little graphs like this one:
Aug 10, 2003 9,000>8/03 9,000
July 21, 2003 8,750>7/03 8,750
July 4, 2003 8,500>7/03 8,500
May 20, 2003 8,000>5/03 8,000
7,500>3/03 7,500
7,000>1/03 7,000
6,500>12/02 6,500
6,000 >9/02 6,000
5,500 >7/02 5,500
5,000 >4/02 5,000
4,500 >2/02 4,500
4,000>10/01 4,000
3,500 >5/01 3,500
3,000 >12/00 3,000
2,500 > 8/00 2,500
2,000 >12/99 2,000
1,500 >10/98 1,500
1,000 >8/97 1,000
500 >4/96 500
100 >12/93 <<<December 10, 1993 100
10 > 12/90 10
YR 1990/1991/1992/1993/1994/1995/1996/1997/1998/1999/2000/2001/2002/2003 ^####
For now:
But we need something to emphasize that if you printed out all the Project
Gutenberg eBooks in normal hardback format, not computer paper, they would
STILL weigh 10,000 pounds = 5 tons = weight of the average adult elephant!
And something about how this same graph will get us to 1,000,000 eBooks in
just one more decade.
It's going to take some imagination to come up with these!!!
8. Help With PT1 Of The Newsletter
I'm going to be concentrating much more on PR and fundraising,
and I have serious tunnel-vision. . .I need help so I won't be
distracted from helping us achieve our goals for the new decade.
9. Reaching 15% Of The World Population: not PR.
Not only are we going to need PR to just TELL people 1,000,000
eBooks are available in 100 different languages, but we should
be preparing some people who know how to help when people want
to set up servers in various locations and languages. . . .
Greg Newby, among all the other dozens of hats he wears for us
. . .is also our Mirror Guru. . .and will certainly be able to
use some help. . .especially when we run into other languages,
operating systems, and other variables.
I should also add that we've never had enough money to pay him
a single cent. . . .
In just a few years, literally, English will no longer be what
it has been, the dominant language of the Internet, and then a
few more years and it won't even be second. . . .
If we are indeed going to prepare for the next 10 years we are
going to have to surf the new waves as they come along. . . .
Which brings us to:
10. Planning For The Next Decade, And Beyond
There are obviously events, and approaches, that no one single
person can possibly come up with, so we are going to need some
SERIOUS futurist thinking and analysis. . .all ideas should be
considered. . . .
For music & art & languages & PR & etc. we'd like to get
a team together. We can provide, free of charge, titles
such as PR coordinator, or music curator. We can set up
mailing lists, provide guidance and solicit even further
help from our Newsletter and Web pages. Be a leader, or
be a follower, for a few minutes per month to many hours
per day. Consider, what it would take for YOU to become
more involved. . .then we'll help to make it happen!!!
Thanks!!!
Always so nice to hear from you!
Michael S. Hart
<hart@pobox.com>
Project Gutenberg
Principal Instigator
"*Internet User ~#100*"
As of August 19 we are over 9/10 of the way to 10,000 eBooks!!!:
Your download should include ~9075+ free eBooks from Project Gutenberg at:
http://gutenberg.net
That means there are ~925- left to go until we get to #10,000!
Currently we have ~110 days to go to December 10, 2003,
a decade since eBook #100, and are averaging 10+ per day.
Next week, hopefully about 70 more!
We are currently running at about 96% of Moore's Law growth.
Perhaps YOUR contribution will bring us up to 100%!!!
Please send us your suggestions!
Hand out free copies!
other_2003_08_19_project_gutenberg_needs_you.txt
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