In the first 50 years of The Gutenberg Press more books were created than in all previous history. Will this also be true of Project Gutenberg’s invention of a modern Gutenberg Press via the electronic book?
Starting With The Present
Let’s just consider the 100,000 eBooks available freely from Project Gutenberg, but keep in mind that there were probably a million free eBooks available on the Internet in 2006. Let’s also just consider that the average one of these books might be downloaded by some 1%-2% of the world population.
1.5% of the world population is about 100 million people.
100,000 x 100,000,000 = 10 Trillion = 10,000,000,000,000
Are there 10 trillion books in the world???
This is pretty much the current state of things, but later I plan to mention how things will change by 2021, when Project Gutenberg turns 50 years old.
And A Nod To The Past, And The Gutenberg Press
When Johannes Gutenberg invented his printing press in ~1450 certainly no one was thinking that by 1500 there would be an explosion of printing that would create more books than ever had existed in all previous history.
And Now, Back To The Future, Or Is It Already The Present?
Obviously there are many more than 100,000 eBooks today.
Project Gutenberg has 100,000, so does The Internet Archive, and who knows how many Google actually has for free download since they make it nearly impossible to tell.
All in all I would say there have been a million free eBooks available on the Internet for at least a year, perhaps two.
Since Google’s eBooks project is really only two years old– that means that there were already a million eBooks before a certain press release Google made on December 14, 2004.
Some people claim Google already has millions of eBooks, but others claim that there are perhaps not really all that many more than 100,000 if you don’t count the ones Google stashes away where you can’t really get at them.
I have heard that Google has well over three million of these hidden eBooks, books you can’t download, can’t read to more than three pages, etc., but the truth is that it’s just a rumor, as Google has steadfastly refused to list the eBook titles it has created…there is no Google catalog.
You can get a list of all in house Project Gutenberg eBooks, though you should expect it to be as large as the books are, and you can also search and retrieve them in various ways.
In addition, you can subscribe to lists of daily, weekly, or monthly catalogs of the new or improved eBooks: so you know as quickly as you want when each new eBook comes out.
This is the way it should be with all eBook libraries, and I predict that it will be, once the first 10 million books are on the virtual shelves, and people stop thinking it is COOL! to hide how many eBooks they actually have.
Not to mention discouraging people from downloading them all into their own person computers…now personal libraries.
When Does The Personal Computer Become The Personal Library?
This is the real question facing the world today…!
What? Personal Libraries?
You mean with as many books as public libraries?
Just as the average persons before Gutenberg owned a 0 books personal library collection, today the average persons owned zero libraries in their personal home collection of books.
Fact:
Before Gutenberg an average person owned zero books!
Fact:
Before Project Gutenberg an average person owned 0 libraries!
Fact:
Today you can buy the average computer for under $500 and add a terabyte hard drive for a total of under $1,000.
If you use several drives to add up to a terabyte, you can do all this for a couple hundred dollars less. Thus began making personal computers into personal libraries!
Fact:
You can download a million eBooks with such a system, and not come close to filling it up half way. [Numbers on request.]
Fact:
Throughout the entire evolution of eBooks from 1991 to 2007 a person could download all the available books without concern of overflowing their hard drives.
Prediction:
By the time there are a billion books to download, there will be petabyte drives instead of terabyte drives, and you’ll see that you can still download all the available eBooks and just on one single hard drive.
Fact:
1 thousand eBooks at 1 megabyte each takes up 1 gigabyte.
1 million eBooks at 1 megabyte each takes up 1 terabyte.
1 billion eBooks at 1 megabyte each takes up 1 petabyte.
If you look at the history of hard drives, you will probably be quite amazed at how soon we should have petabytes that we all can afford…meaning we can download all billion eBook files and never have to delete any of them!
Presuming anyone would WANT something as SILLY as a library, much less a library of 10 million books in 100 languages.
Epilog
The Last Big Numbers…For The Moment
When the first step was taken to create the first eLibrary– way back in 1971–certainly no one was thinking the 50 years coming down the road should lead to more eBooks in the world than paper books….
If we only consider the 100,000 Project Gutenberg eBooks for an audience of 1%-2% of the world population, we get numbers that literally boggle most imaginations.
1.5% of the world population is about 100 million persons.
100 million people times 100 thousand books = 10 trillion!!!
AND THAT IS JUST THE ESTIMATED FIGURES FOR THE PRESENT TIME!
Right now there are already a billion people on the Internet with active accounts, perhaps two billion if you count phone users who have Internet access, email, Web browsers, etc.
By the end of this year there will be three billion in these ranks of active cell phone users, and more and more of their phones will have Internet access.
The pundits seem to agree that by 2010 there should be FOUR! billion active cell phone users, and that Internet access is going to be the default for nearly all the new phones.
Obviously by 2021 cell phones will be at saturation levels– meaning just about everybody who wants one will have one.
SIX BILLION PEOPLE
And most of them will have Internet access.
Let’s suppose that only one out of six wants to read eBooks, which will hopefully be available in all major languages.
That’s ONE BILLION PEOPLE or about 15% of the world.
PETABYTE DRIVES IN 2021
Let’s also suppose that in the next 15 years petabyte drive technology has become commonplace.
You think not?
Sorry, if you already had a gigabyte drive 15 years ago you were very obviously among the very first, and it cost you a couple thousand dollars.
Today you can order a terabyte drive for $400 at list price along with millions of other people.
Thus, barring major catastrophes, you should be able to buy a petabyte drive 15 years from now, and the cost should not be very high.
ONE BILLION eBOOKS
The number of eBooks available today has grown from dozens, around 1991, to over a million in 2007, not even counting a single eBooks from Google, Yahoo, Library of Congress, etc.
That’s 1,000 eBooks today for each eBook you had in 1991.
If you had over 12 eBooks at the start of 1991, then you’re a very special case, and probably are in the history books.
However, eBooks won’t be so special in the future.
For each of the million eBooks you might download today for your brand new terabyte drive there will be 1,000 more from which to select in 2021.
A BILLION eBOOKS IN 2021
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Conclusion:
Now let’s combine the three topics mentioned above….
One billion eBooks = 10 million times 100 languages.
15% of the world population reading online = one billion.
Petabyte drives that can hold all one billion ebooks.
What I am proposing is that more people will have access to more books in less time at less cost than ever before.
The first gigabyte drives cost $2,000 in the early 1990’s.
The first terabyte drives cost $400 early in 2007.
The first petabyte drives will cost less in 2021, and will be able to hold all billion available eBooks.
If the price trend from gigabyte to terabyte keeps up, the price of the first petabyte drives will be $100 or less.
What would happen if just 1.5% of the world downloaded the entire billion eBook library?
100 million x one billion = 100 quadrillion
100,000 people x 1,000,000,000 books = 1 quadrillion books
1 quadrillion = 1,000,0000,000,000,000
HOWEVER, I am setting my sights on a true book revolution, just as caused by The Gutenberg Press.
I would like to see NOT 1.5% of the world, not just some elite or scholarly bunch, but 15% of the world to download the entire billion eBook library, and even greater numbers to download just the portion in their own language.
I would like to see these books read out loud to readers and potential readers, to increase the literacy rates jump from low levels to high levels…worldwide!!!
15% isn’t really such a large number to hope for.
15% of the world already have computers.
40% of the world already have cell phones.
By 2021 I hope that 15% will seem incredibly small and the new operators of Project Gutenberg’s second 50 years would think of the goals laid out here as no more than a start.
NO MORE THAN A START ON THE ROAD TO UNIVERSAL EDUCATION!!!
— Michael Hart