Book People Archive

Re: EXTRA! Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter

Bowerbird@[redacted] wrote:

> i was paying _very_ close attention as far back as
> 1980, and _nobody_ except michael was making
> any big noises about electronic-books...   no one!

   I have to protest ... (somewhat later: although I find
I agree in a different sense).

   Not even "Literary Machines"? That was a big noise
about electronic books, if anything. It was lower on
reality, though, perhaps because it put the sights
a few notches higher than where electronic books are
today. If there was any kind of inspirational writing
at the time, that was it, as well as "Computer Lib"/
"Dream Machines" before it.

> indeed, until the mid-90s (um, make that 1993),
> michael didn't get much help from anyone else...
 >
 > not until wired wrote him up (around that time)
 > did the idea seem to get _any_ traction at all...

   Things looked a little different then.

   There was OBI, started by Barry Shein somewhere
around early 1990 or so. There was also Thomas Dell
and wiretap.spies.com, and I think I recall a few
other similar projects besides Gutenberg (though I
probably include some academic projects, like OTA,
in this mental list).

   But at the time, Project Gutenberg was only one e-text
project among others, and not the most promising
one at that (though that's mainly a personal impression).

   OBI was quite active at the time -- I personally
thought it looked far more active and attractive than
Gutenberg did. Gutenberag had some 50 titles in the
catalogue at the time (1993), while OBI had considerably more.
OBI had also quite a number of active contributors ...
I remember seeing new titles in the incoming area of
the OBI ftp server every week.

   Gutenberg made the biggest noises, though -- I
agree to that. The project seemed far more aloof and
academical. Perhaps it was that 'National Clearinghouse
for Machine Readable Texts' and the combined titles of
Project Gutenberg Executive Director and Professor that
did it. And queries were directed to the 'Director of
Communications' ... those things added up: Project
Gutenberg did not give the impression of needing
anything very much with such titles.

   Later, of course, OBI grew moribund, probably as
work pressure around The World grew -- spam problems,
for instance -- which ultimately led to its demise.
Wiretap lasted longer, I think, but it, too, seemed
to languish. At least the OBIers drifted away to other
projects. Some, I'm sure, went over to PG.

   (I see that Google doesn't seem to have any archives
of alt.etext ... nor bit.listserv.gutenberg-l ...
but bit.listserv.pacs-l archives *are* there, where many
of the projects were discussed or posted in the
early days before alt.etext was reasonably well spread.
The http://wiretap.area.com/Gopher/alt.etext/ archives
still are around, though. )

   No, I don't have the same image of Project Gutenberg
being a lone voice in a desert at the time. There were
several other voices being heard as well.

-- 
Anders Thulin     ath*algonet.se     http://www.algonet.se/~ath