The Project Gutenberg FAQ 2002
by Jim Tinsley
Important: This file is posted to the Project Gutenberg archivesnot as a current guide, more as a historical reference. I hopethat future FAQs will be posted, as the project evolves, butthis one is of its time.
If you want the most up-to-date information from PG, pleasesee the current version of the FAQ, from the Project Gutenbergsite, or, at the time of posting, at:
http://ibiblio.org/gutenberg/faq/gutfaq.txt
or
http://ibiblio.org/gutenberg/faq/gutfaq.htm
Acknowledgements
Writing a FAQ for an organization of fanatical proofreaders hasits ups and downs! I'd like to thank all those who correctedmy facts and my typos, and especially the people who pointed outthe lack of clarity in certain answers. The remaining errors andopacity are all mine.
Preface to the archive edition
Ironically, Project Gutenberg, which preserves the writings ofothers, doesn't have much written history itself. There arescraps of e-mails and guidelines, but many newsletters and otherinternal writings before 1996 have gone to the great bit-bucketin the sky.
The later half of the '90s marked a graceful blooming of ProjectGutenberg's growth. Three related technical factors contributed: theexplosion in home PCs brought standardization, which made it easyfor non-techies to install scanners, which, in response to the newdemand, became plentiful and cheap. And, of course, these years sawthe rise in popularity of the Internet, which has always been PG'smain channel of communication and distribution.
However, while PG's production expanded geometrically, at Moore'sLaw rates, there were barriers to participation. Most volunteers hadto find an eligible book, scan or type it, and proof the resultingtext all by themselves. This was and is a fairly significant amountof work: 40 painstaking hours would be a typical commitment for onebook.
Beyond that, simply learning the mechanics of producing e-textscould be a serious challenge for newcomers. Nearly all internalPG communication, except for the Newsletter, was by private e-mail,and instructions had to be repeated many times to individual newvolunteers, all of whom showed up with great good will, but most ofwhom vanished after a week or two.
Michael Hart was unstinting in his editing of incoming texts andhandling questions by e-mail, but any one person has only so manyhours.
The Directors of Production at the time — Sue Asscher, Dianne Bean,John Bickers and David Price — served as contact points for adviceand help, made enormous efforts of production themselves, and triedto share the scanned texts among new volunteers for proofing. Theymade a huge contribution to building community in PG.
Pietro Di Miceli set up a web site for the project in 1996, and withthe popularization of the Web (as opposed to the Internet), this becamea beacon for readers and new volunteers.
All of these people reached out to willing volunteers, drew them in,helped them, encouraged them. The Project and all of the readers ofthe books, now and in the future, owe these people a great debt.Without them, Project Gutenberg could not have achieved what it has.But still, for the most part, each volunteer worked alone.
In 1999, I wrote, in response to an offer to volunteer:
I think I can best answer your offer, and many others like it,