Produced by Al Haines
THE EBOOK IS 40 (1971-2011)
Marie Lebert
Project Gutenberg News, 2011
INTRODUCTION
The ebook (electronic book) is 40 years old. After humble beginnings,it is firmly standing alongside the print book. We now read ebooks onour computers, PDAs, mobile phones, smartphones and ebook readers.
“The ebook is 40” is a chronology in 44 episodes from 1971 to 2011.Unless specified otherwise, the quotes are excerpts from the NEFInterviews <www.etudes-francaises.net/entretiens/>, University ofToronto, and the interviews that followed as a complement. Many thanksto all those who are quoted here, for their time and their friendship.
Part of this book was published as a series of articles in ProjectGutenberg News <www.gutenbergnews.org> in July 2011, to celebrate the40th anniversary of Project Gutenberg on 4 July 2011.
This book marks the very end of a 12-year research project, with 100participants worldwide.
Marie Lebert is a researcher and journalist specializing in technologyfor books and languages. Her books are freely available in ProjectGutenberg <www.gutenberg.org>, in various formats for any electronicdevice.
Copyright © 2011 Marie Lebert
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1971 > Project Gutenberg, a visionary project1974 > The internet “took off”1990 > The invention of the web1991 > From ASCII to Unicode1992 > Homes for electronic texts1993 > The Online Books Page1993 > PDF, from past to present1994 > The internet as a marketing tool1995 > The print press went online1995 > Amazon, a pioneer in cybercommerce1996 > The Internet Archive, for future generations1996 > Libraries launched websites1996 > Towards a digital knowledge1996 > The @folio project, a mobile device for texts1997 > Multimedia convergence1997 > A portal for European national libraries1997 > E Ink, an electronic ink technology1998 > The Electronic Beowulf Project1998 > Web-extended commercial books1998 > A more restrictive copyright law1998 > The first ebook readers1999 > Librarians in cyberspace1999 > The Ulysses Bookstore on the web1999 > The internet as a novel character2000 > Encyclopedias and dictionaries2000 > The web portal yourDictionary.com2000 > A standard format for ebooks2000 > Experiments by best-selling authors2000 > Cotres.net, works of digital literature2000 > The Gutenberg Bible online2001 > Broadband became the norm2001 > Wikipedia, a collaborative encyclopedia2001 > The Creative Commons license2003 > Handicapzéro, the internet for everyone2003 > The Public Library of Science2004 > The web 2.0, community and sharing2005 > From PDAs to smartphones2005 > From Google Print to Google Books2005 > The Open Content Alliance, a universal library2006 > The union catalog WorldCat on the web2007 > The Encyclopedia of Life, a global effort2007 > The future of ebooks seen from France2010 > From the Librié to the iPad2011 > The ebook in ten points
1971 > PROJECT GUTENBERG, A VISIONARY PROJECT
[Summary]The first ebook was available in July 1971, as eText #1 of ProjectGutenberg, a visionary project launched by Michael Hart to create freeelectronic versions of literary works and disseminate them worldwide.In the 16th century, Gutenberg allowed anyone to have print books for asmall cost. In the 21