What to do with a million books: Innovations in Scholarly Communication

(The 'scholarly communication' in this email isn't that 'scholarly' ie. I think that Michael Hart the founder of Project Gutenburg is talking about hard-on tablets rather than e-books ie. 'bigger, faster, more'. Still, ebooks may eventually become more than just 'the delivery boy' of scholarship as Willard McCarthy of that wonderful email discussion list Humanist might say). 1/2 Million Volume Goal for Next Week's World eBook Fair! Fair Hopes to Give Away 100 Million Copies of eBooks! It Is Now One Week to The Second World eBook Fair! 500,000+ eBooks are scheduled to be available in October, International Book Fair Month For an advance look visit: http://worldebookfair.com Press Release: Effective Sept 26 – October 3, 2006 A one minute visit to The World eBook Fair site could get you a free copy of any of over 400,000 eBooks or an eBook via a 50% off coupon from a commercial eBook vendor. The Second World eBook Fair will add nearly 100,000 eBook downloads to its free access site for a total of 400,000+ instantly downloadable books, and will hopefully add even more than 100,000 commercial eBooks in mid-October, for a grand total that could pass 1/2 million and approach 2/3, by the end of the month as more and more eBooks are added throughout the month. This total includes over 100,000 from Project Gutenberg's eBook library and over 300,000 of the World eBook Library collection that are usually availably by subscription for $8.95 per year, but are given away free of charges during The World eBook Fairs. 500,000 eBooks From Over 100 eLibraries=World eBook Fair! Over 100 worldwide electronic libraries have donated book collections being made available to all in October, and a total of over 125 could be in place by month's end. If all the collections being amassed at this moment would come to fruition during the International Book Fair Month of October 1 – 31, the grand total could be well over the estimated 1/2 million mark, perhaps even to 2/3 million– but we're sticking with the estimate of 1/2 million for a couple weeks until mid-October. The Rapid Growth of eBooks The First World eBook Fair gave away ~30 million eBooks a few months ago in July, and now a Second World eBook Fair is trying to give away 100 million, in addition to adding requested new materials from the commercial eBook world. Just 100 days after opening The First World eBook Fair in which books were offered from 100 electronic libraries we have already received donations of additional eBooks from ~25 more eLibraries from around the world and are looking forward to two collections, one commercial, one free, for sometime during The Second World eBooks Fair, each one in excess of 100,000 additional eBooks. Perhaps Twice As Many eBooks Will Be Included in October! Up from the 1/3 million eBooks included in The First World eBook Fair three months ago, perhaps 1/2 to 2/3 million at the highest hopes are now goals for The Second World eBook Fair scheduled to start on October 1, the beginning of the International Book Fair Month. What Is The World eBook Fair? The first step towards building a library of eBooks was in 1971, 20 years before the word "Internet" appeared a first time on the cover or front page of any major publication: Page One, The Wall St. Journal, Oct. 29, 1991 The story was about the very eBooks that are appearing now as part of The World eBook Fair, but the press is giving a nearly total credit to Google and Yahoo, as if they should be credited with the invention of eBooks and eLibraries. The World eBook Fair is a continuing attempt to bring free and inexpensive eBooks to the attention of the public, for the purposes of increasing literacy and reading throughout the entire world. This is a major effort to increase awareness of eBooks for downloading via the Internet, via cellphones, or via DVDS, CDs, iPods, Palm Pilots and just plain computers. If we can increase literacy and reading habits by just 10% then we also increase the odds of a cure for AIDS by 10%. Our goal is to reach 15% of the world population and to do what we can to give each of them a library of millions and millions of books they would not have access to otherwise. The First World eBook Fair presented 1/3 million free book files for download and The Second will include even more– and will also include, at the request of our readers, some additional new commercial eBooks. Contact information for all parties is included below. In response to requests from readers around the world, the Second World eBook Fair will include modern books from the commercial eBook publishers in greater numbers, perhaps as many as 100,000 of these by the end of October, though the entire commercial eBook count and release is very hushhush at the moment, and we probably can't tell you until we are literally at the very last moment. However, there is a second possible collection of 100,000, all of which will be free of charge, that is also a secret project for the time being, also scheduled for unveiling a few weeks from now during October. Actually, each of these projects is targeting in excess of 100,000 books each. If both of these project come to fruition in October as we are hoping and planning, the grand total would likely rise to over 600,000 and perhaps to 2/3 million, doubling eBook totals from the First World eBook Fair. Of course, if neither come to fruition in October then the grand total is still between 400,000 and 500,000 eBooks, a far sight from the 100,000 eBooks sometimes offered by the Google Book Search project. Bigger, Better, Faster, More In addition to requests for more modern eBooks, efforts in the Second World eBook Fair have been made to insure users won't have the delays caused by such long virtual lines in October, as the highest size and grade of bandwidth is now in place at http://worldebookfair.com New computers are also in place, along with a new software upgraded in several areas to provide the easier and faster searches that have also been requested, Most of the eBooks are fully searchable, you can search to find any quotation, name, etc., in hundreds of thousands. Contacts For Further Information: Michael S. Hart, Founder, Project Gutenberg USA Phone: 217-344-6623 John Guagliardo, Founder, World eBook Library USA Phone: 808-292-2086 Prof. Greg Newby, CEO, Project Gutenberg USA Phone: 907-450-8663 Visit Digital Pulp Publishing at http://www:ddpstore.com Catherine Hodge 760-327-5110 USA Hodge@digitalpulppublishing.com John Mizzi, Founder, Mobile [Cell Phone] eBooks +356 2155 0846 johnmizzi@mobilebooks.org http://www.mobilebooks.org [Malta] Visit The World eBook Fair at http://worldebookfair.com Here is some additional information from each of these parties: Mobile [Cellphone] eBooks Are Becoming All The Rage 5,000 new eBooks for cellphones are being added this week and this is only 1% of the hoped for 500,000 eBooks being targeted for release on the first day of October in honor of International Book Fair Month. Details below. Up from the 1/3 million eBook files offered for download, all free of charge, on July 4, in response to requests of eBook readers around the world, more eBooks were added to include more modern selections via commercial sources and a wider variety of formats, which could total 1/2 million eBooks in October. If all goes perfectly well there will be 1/2 million free eBooks, AND over 100,000 from various commercial eBook sources. Given the unprecedented downloading of ~30 million eBooks files in July, The World eBook Fair has created whole new combinations of hardware and software to allow more files to be downloaded by more people, with the hopes of giving away 100 million eBooks in October. Both Searching and Downloading of eBooks Now Streamlined New software has been implemented to eliminate delays due to high download activity, searches are now handled via a completely different servers than downloads and searching should be not only faster but easier, as more suggestions are available when using the search engine. Bandwidth should be multiplied by 6 or 7, and should thus allow for everyone to log in at the same time without any of the problems from overloading of lines. Obvious Comparisons To Google Google has just passed 100,000 eBooks, many of which will not be allowed for download; nearly two years after their huge launch of their 10 million book Google Print Library back in 2004 = just 1% of their goal. The World eBook Fair, which started just three months ago appears to already be reaching 500,000 eBooks, the stated goal for July 4, 2007, and could perhaps pass 2/3 million which was their stated goal for July 4, 2008, but only if all their ducks line up in a row and take off perfectly. However, with two such massive additional projects on the horizon, there is little doubt that The World eBook Fairs will continue to outpace Google Book Search, which Google had to rename the Google Print Library to since it turned out users could neither print the books nor use them in a traditional library sense. Of course, this has been contradicted not only by Google's actions, but also in their own words: "Google Book Search is a means for helping users discover books, not to read them online and/or download them." However, in all honesty, we must inform you that Google's current efforts seem to be in a better direction, even if they don't appear to be making much progress toward their 10 million eBook goal as stated. A Little eBook History Project Gutenberg began the world's first eLibrary around July 4, 1971 and has continued as the major voice for the construction of free electronic libraries worldwide. Project Gutenberg currently hosts over 100,000 eBooks for free download on sites around the world. [Details below] John Guagliardo and The World eBook Library Michael Hart, Project Gutenberg founder, was invited to a meeting of The Hawaii Library Association to present at a yearly conference around 1999 by then Hawaii Library Assn President John Guaglairdo, founder of World eBook Library and now sponsor of The Project Gutenberg Consortia Center and The World eBook Fair. John and Michael enjoy working together on eBooks more than most people could imagine. The World eBook Library has hundreds of thousands of book titles available in .pdf files, any and all of which will be downloadable free during The World eBook Fair, and are permanent additions to your own eBook library. The books are normally available for $8.95 per year subscription at http://public-library.net/ Greg Newby, Project Gutenberg CEO Greg and Michael met at The University of Illinois School of Library Science when Dr. Newby first arrived as a Ph.D in Library and Information Science from Syracuse; friends from the first moment they met they worked on information science with the energy and perspectives only shared by a combination of the young and the idealistic, both with an assortment of skills and workaholic idealism that started public computing at The University Of Illinois. Greg is now spending much of his time running "The Arctic Regions Supercomputing Center at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks," and spends the rest of his working time on Project Gutenberg, when not mushing his dog teams or home with his family. Catherine Hodge and Digital Pulp Publishing Yet another workaholic idealist, Catherine met Michael on one of the more popular eBook discussion lists, and their mutual interests have carried them into World eBook Fairs #1 and #2 with an ever increasing role being played by an eBook commercial center. Right now Catherine, Greg, John and Michael, and friends, relatives, etc., are overworking themselves to create The Second World eBook Fair in a manner than cannot be missed by anyone who values literacy or literature. John Mizzi and Mobile Books for Cellphones John Mizzi, Founder of Mobile Books: contact info above, is the latest major contributor with 5,000 eBooks via the ranks of cellphone/mobile users all over the world and he is already targeting a goal of 20,000 eBooks for the next World eBook Fair. 100,000+ Project Gutenberg eBooks permanently available The following 100,000+ eBooks are always free of charge: 21,500 eBooks at http://www.gutenberg.org ~50 languages 100,000 eBooks at http://www.gutenberg.cc ~100 languages 1,290 eBooks at http://gutenberg.net.au PG of Australia 350 eBooks at http://pge.rastko.net ~65 languages via Project Gutenberg of Europe