The Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter--Sep. 21, 2009
eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since 1971
39 Months to The End of the World Via Mayan Calendaring
on December 21, 2012 [some now saying October 11, 2011]
Leaving 3 years 3 months, 13 1/4 seasons or 39 months.
Not to worry, I will still make long range predictions,
such as that there will be affordable petabytes [2021],
and enough eBooks to fill an entire petabyte around the
same time.
Headline News
New Book About eBooks Out This Week!
[Quotations from the press release]
"50 Benefits of Ebooks" is a lively introduction to the
brave new worlds of ebooks and electronic publishing.
This revised September, 2009 edition (now 50,000 words)
is 25% larger than the March edition, with new chapters,
and features an inspiring Afterword by Michael S. Hart,
founder of Project Gutenberg.
A PDF version is available for sale right now. An EPUB
version will be available on September 28; a paperback
will be released on October 14.
The price is $ 2 -- one-tenth of the paperback price.
There is a special discount for senior citizens and
for buyers of the March edition: $ 1.
More information on how and Where to Find Free Ebooks,
essay: The Google Book Search Settlement Demystified"
just a couple of the new and expanded areas.
For more information please visit the book's blog-site
http://www.EpublishersWeekly.net
To buy the book
http://www.lulu.com/content/multimedia/7657277
eBook Milestones
We just released our 25,000th English Project Gutenberg
eBook as "Merriam-Websters Unabridged Dictionary, 1913"
about a month ago, and we are now coming up on 30,000th
in all languages, under U.S. Copyright Law and 35,000th
created by all Project Gutenberg sites worldwide. This
is not counting any of the ~75,000 eBooks available via
http://www.gutenberg.cc which have been donated by many
eLibraries outside the Project Gutenberg systems.
In addition, Project Gutenberg of Australia is about to
post its 1800th eBook, and we are coming up on #1500 of
our eBooks in French.
Last month: Project Gutenberg posted its 25,000th home-
grown eBook: home-grown means not including eBooks given
by the various Project Gutenbergs that are springing up,
including Australia [approaching 2,000], PG of Europe is
approaching 650, PG of Canda is approching 500, and many
more around the world.
All in all, adding up all the Project Gutenberg sites in
toto, not discount duplications, there are 100,000+ book
titles, along with music, movies, audiobooks, etc.
All in all the original Project Gutenberg has produced a
total of 29,660 at the time of this release, meaning the
their total in all 50+ languages they have produced will
be turning 30,000 in about a month.
This larger total includes nearly 1,500 books in French,
about 600 in German, 500 in Finnish, over 400 in Dutch &
Chinese, about 350 in Portuguese, and 250 in Spanish and
the list goes on and on.
If it is languages other than English that interest you:
http://www.gutenberg.cc
where there are over 100 languages represented in a wide
variety of languages and subjects, with about 75,000 all
total, approximately half of which are non-English.
///
Our 30,000th eBook created under U.S. copyright law is a
beautiful volume on birds, lavishly illustrated.
Thanks!!!
Michael
///
We Recently Published Our:
200th eBook in Italian
400th eBook in Chinese
500th eBook in Finnish
600th eBook in German
1799th eBook from Project Gutenberg of Australia
We are coming up on our 1500th in French. . .suggestions???
de Toqueville's Democracy? Voltaire? Others?
We are coming up on our 250th in Spanish. . .suggestions???
Our All Time Hottest Requests!!!!!!!
FLASH RAM
I am looking for the earliest flash RAM possible.
The ideal piece around which to center this collection is
one of the 8 megabyte USBs.
The very earliest were PCMCIA cards, such as used for the
Poqet computer, etc.
The earliest USB flash drives were DisgoDizgo, M-Systems
and these were OEMed by IBM, HP, etc. They are particular
in a recognizable fashion because their snapon connectors
resemble the connectors of jigsaw puzzles.
We received two examples of RAM actually labeled "Flash,"
for the H-P 95 pocket DOS machine from 1991, and a sample
of Fairchild bubble memory, as well, from down under.
Thank you, Mate!
POWERPOINT
We need someone who can do PowerPoint illustrations.
One in particular, building a 3-D box of 1,000 dominoes.
Additional Newsletter Services
In addition, we will provide the PG Canada Newsletter and
totals from PG of Australia, Europe, PrePrints, etc.
These totals do NOT include 75,000+ at
httpwww.gutenberg.cc
Where there are eBooks representing over 100 languages.
As you may have noticed, I cheated by a few days on the
date of this Newsletter so I could include #25,000 so I
should warn you that the monthly totals will be larger,
this month, and smaller next time.
The Project Gutenberg Statistical Report
[As of about noon Central Daylight Time]
Various totals from the ~30,000 at
httpwww.gutenberg.org
and our other Project Gutenberg Sites
day | cnt
----------------+-----
Mon 2009-09-14 | 12
Tue 2009-09-15 | 8
Wed 2009-09-16 | 5
Thu 2009-09-17 | 10
Fri 2009-09-18 | 9
Sat 2009-09-19 | 12
Sun 2009-09-20 | 11
Thanks to Marcello Perathoner!
Here are the current language totals
for languages with 200 or more eBooks.
Grand total for today: 29943
25197 English en
1486 French fr
606 German de
515 Finnish fi
447 Dutch nl
402 Chinese zh
354 Portuguese pt
260 Spanish es
216 Italian it
Total increase +281
Last month:
Grand total: 29662
25002 English en
1454 French fr
597 German de
513 Finnish fi
441 Dutch nl
402 Chinese zh
344 Portuguese pt
253 Spanish es
203 Italian it
Total increase +294
Previous month +287 All Reported Languges
Not counting PrePrints, Canada, Australia, PG Europe
Thanks to Greg Newby!
//////
And From Project Gutenberg Sites Worldwide
29,943 up 281 PG General Automated Count
1,799 up 13 PG of Australia
647 up 3 PG of Europe
2,009 dn 12 PG PrePrints, Reserved [42],etc.
[PrePrints was down when I checked, sorry]
450 up 25 PG of Canada [Est. since End of June]
[No additional news from PG of Canada]
======
34,848 up 310 Grand Total
Last Month
34,528 up 359 Grand Total
Previous month
34,179 up 347 Grand Total
Up from previous month's
33,832 up 320 Grand Total
Note There are perhaps 100 eBooks not listed here
that are already in circulation from Project Gutenberg.
Note PG Canada includes English, French, and Italian.
///
Here is how we ended 2008
27,616 PG General Automated Count
1,726 Project Gutenberg of Australia
554 Project Gutenberg of Europe
225 Project Gutenberg of Canada [Estimated]
[202 up to December, no current report]
2,431 PrePrints [Counting the 307 Chinese eBooks +111]
====== ======
32,552 Grand Total [Counting those PrePrints]
Here is how we ended 2007
The combined PG projects had produced a total of 26,161 titles.
The most number of books posted...
...in one day was 65 on the 26th December
...in one week was 151 in Week 18 (week ending 9th May)
...in one month was 477 in November
We averaged
338 per month [Over 4,000 for the year]
78 per week
11.13 per day
99 titles were newly REposted to the new filing system, bringing us
almost to the 2,000 mark.
Here is a small selection of project milestones;
TOTAL Original Project Gutenberg eBooks equals about
the number of books in the average U.S. public library
32,500 on 20082121 [Counting the 307 Chinese Preprints]
[And presuming 3 after official count]
32,000 on Calcuating
31,500 on 20081021 [not an error, 1,777 PrePrints]
30,000 on 20081021
29,500 on 20080919
29,000 ~~ Calculating
28,500 ~~ Calculating
28,000 ~~ 20080516
27,500 on 20080405
27,000 ~~ 20080229
26,500 on 20080126
26,000 on 20071224
25,000 on 20071012
24,000 on 20070710
23,000 on 20070415
PG-AU
1,700 on 20081010
1,600 on 20080208
1,500 on 20070407
PG Canada
175 on 20080930
100 on 20080325
110 on 20080417
///
Here is the July emergency Newsletter in toto for archiving.
Extra Edition of the PG Newsletter
I'm sending this out now because I have serious doubts as
to whether I will be able to do this very easily when the
Newsletter is actually due. This may be the last time on
this hard drive that I actually get booted up, and it was
pretty much just luck that got me this far.
I'll be buying some new computers this week, I hope, with
the hopes that I will be more or less back to normal, but
right now the thing won't even let me make backups as the
USB ports have power, but don't recognize any drives.
I'm actually dialed up on the modem right now.
If any of you have any suggestions as to the best deals I
should be looking at for laptops and netbooks, please let
me know, and please cc: gbnewby at pglaf.org
The Brief News
We are rapidly coming up to our 25,000th eBook in English
and all suggestions for what title to use are welcome.
This should take place next month.
In addition, we are coming up on our 30,000th PG eBook of
all languages perhaps a month or so after that, so we are
also looking for a great eBook in another language to put
up as #30,000.
We are giving away about 75,000 books per day through the
http://www.gutenberg org server, for ~2 million per month
and the monthly total was often over 3 million per month,
all told over the past 4 years or so.
This means we have given away over 100 million books over
the past 4 years, just through that one site alone.
The World eBook Fair
In addition, over these same four years we have sponsored
The World eBook Fair along with The Internet Archive, The
World Public Library, ebooksabouteverything.org, etc.
http://www.worldebookfair.org handed out a million files,
just on one day alone, July 4, to start up this 39th year
of presenting eBooks on the Internet.
Please note: this is less than a million eBooks, as some
entries are multi-file in nature.
Traffic has since dropped to about half that, with a very
healthy 50,000 downloads per day of our "best sellers."
In its first year The World eBook Fair gave away nearly a
total of 30 million eBooks, and if the averages have been
at 25 million over the 4 years, that's a 200 million book
total over those two URLs over a 4 year period, or totals
somewhere in that range.
This does not count all the other sites such as Australia
or Canada or PG of Europe, etc.
The Current PG Totals
I'm not sure I have time right now to fill in everything,
with monthly comparisons as I usually do, as I am running
mostly on adrenaline right now and will have to stop soon
to eat, sleep, shower, etc.
Here are the brief reports you can compare to last month:
I will also try to get back online after the fact and try
to redo a real Newsletter with all info as of July 21st.
Here are today's numbers for languages with 200+ eBooks:
Grand total for today: 29326
24725 English en
1442 French fr
587 German de
508 Finnish fi
433 Dutch nl
402 Chinese zh
338 Portuguese pt
242 Spanish es
202 Italian it
Courtesy of Greg Newby.
Here are the weekly totals:
day | cnt
----------------+-----
Fri 2009-07-10 | 9
Sat 2009-07-11 | 11
Sun 2009-07-12 | 11
Mon 2009-07-13 | 11
Tue 2009-07-14 | 7
Wed 2009-07-15 | 8
Thu 2009-07-16 | 8
Courtesy of Marcello Perathoner
We have recently been averaging just under 10 books per day
with some very good days that are much better.
If we are lucky, we may do 3,500 to 4,000 books for 2009.
Not to mention the hundreds of books that have been updated
and improved, corrected, etc.
Many thanks to all who have helped us reach our 39th year!
Michael S. Hart
Founder
Project Gutenberg
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