On the passing of Project Gutenberg's Founder

[Rudy Troike]

Thanks to Rolland for sharing this sad news.

Michael Hart was just getting Project Gutenberg off the ground when I was
at the University of Illinois -- his goal was to make all books out of
copyright freely accessible in the public domain. He began by painstakingly
typing in whole books himself, then recruited friends and volunteers to
assist in typing and proofreading. With the advent of scanners and pdf, the
operation began an explosive expansion, now readily including books in other
languages, and contributors from around the world. Now you can download a
single book, or you can order a CD of recent accessions, or even a DVD with
10,000 books on one disk, The whole operation still relies on volunteers and
contributions, such as Rolland.

If you ever want to consult works published before 1921 (without renewed
copyright), you can just search Google or Yahoo for Project Gutenberg, and
you will probably find what you want, or discover many other gems. I have
been using it in some of my research on historical sources for Gullah, the
African American semi-creole spoken on the Sea Islands and coastal areas
of South Carolina and Georgia.

Michael Hart will forever be an inspiring example of the difference one
individual can make in the world.

 --Rudy