Project Gutenberg

Original article at www.america.gov

Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, Project Gutenberg is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books.

As of December 2007, Project Gutenberg had over 24,000 books in its collection. Today, a grand total of over 100,000 titles are available at Project Gutenberg partners and affiliates. There are no costly e-book readers, software, or other devices necessary to view online books.


Illinois local Michael Hart started project Gutenberg in 1971 as a student at the University of Illinois. By the mid-1990s, Hart was running Project Gutenberg from Illinois Benedictine College.

This project can help teachers merge technology into their everyday lesson plans. Students can read e-books, research books 100+ years old, and find original works.

Since this is a free web based technology tool, students do not need to purchase books, and teachers can print out everything they see because there is no copy write laws on any of the materials posted.

Some of the books on Project Gutenberg are available at public libraries, but there are lots of rare books have been out of print a long time. How fun it would be to look at some of the original words and even pages from stories written over 100 years ago.

Some popular books on the site:

• A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (130)

• Dracula by Bram Stoker (112)

• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (3930)

• Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (3523

Project Gutenberg is also making audio e-books available for some of the existing literature available in text format. The listings are divided into two categories: Human-read and computer-generated audio books.

• Humane read books are read by volunteers in many languages.

• The computer-generated voices used in these books are similar to those on automated systems used by the blind.

Some examples:

• The Secret Garden, Burnett, Frances Hodgson, 1849-1924 (English)

• The Letters of Mark Twain
  

• 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, Jules Verne
  

• The Island of Doctor Moreau, H.G Wells

Project Gutenberg is perfect for: literature, poems, and history lessons. There are many ways to incorporate this web resources into a lesson plan, thus offering students a chance to diversify their options when it comes to reading, and research material. Also PG conveniently has multiple languages for most of its material. That way ESL students will not be left out. And best of all, it’s free!