"It's the Year of the eBook!"
The World Public Library Blog Newsletter
Volume 1, Number 2
Thrusday, May 19, 2011
Published Twice Weekly
by Michael S. Hart
Founder Project Gutenberg,
Inventor of eBooks
Who would have thought how easy it would be to download eBooks from a collection of a million titles?
Only two people that I know of, and I know lots of people in eBooks from the very beginning up to this year, "The Year of the eBook."
Those two people are John Guagliardo and myself and you have access to both by sending in your questions, comments and even your essays and articles to this blog so others can share your point of view.
Right now World Public Library is moving past the Two million eBook mark at such speed that by the time all is said and done with a new expanded eLibrary here that there will very likely be THREE million eBooks for people to choose to download.
These millions of eBooks are all hand prepared by people worldwide, just so they can be read by more people than ever have read a paper book of the same title.
We're giving more and more attention to mobile devices, and we hope to have full support for any number of screen sizes from computers, to iPads, to iPods and iPhones, etc.
The reason is simple: the world has just over a billion computers, but it now has about FIVE billion active cellphones, and unless you have a particularly hard to work cellphone, you should have eBooks, and plenty of them, available to read.
As The World Public Library progresses, we hope to add languages of wider and wider varieties to the point where the vast majority of a worldwide reading audience can read in their own language and learn to read, and eventually speak, in any number of other languages, as the text to speech capabilities of these devices is developed.
Young people should be able to learn to read their own languages by simply listening to the text to speech programs and seeing an eBook script go by at the same time, with the easy ability to listen more times to particular passages they want to master.
eBooks in the Wild As a Series
I'm thinking of a continuing feature called "eBooks in the Wild," a set of photos and stories about who saw eBooks out in real life; if you have such stories and/or pictures, please send them in.
eBooks in the Wild #2
When I got on the plane to go to Hawaii and see the World Public Library, last time, the very first person in the very first row was reading an eBook!!! It was a Kindle, and I had never seen one in the wild, so I asked, and got a free tour. Then it turned out John also had a Kindle and I read Verne, about the crazy hot air balloon trip, all the way through.
Speaking of Kindles, I have a DX and a 3, but the DX thinks it gets full after just loading on one handful of books, while the 3 has an awful lot of eBooks in it already and isn't complaining at all.
Any suggestions for our next Newsletter?
eBooks in the Wild
Predictions
eBook Statistics
eBook Sales vs. World Public Library, Project Gutenberg, etc.
How Many eBook Titles Are Available Compared to Paper Books?
Total Volume of Online Sales
Why Computers Never Go Any Faster Than The Year Before
This Newsletter is also available via direct email, just send me a note at hart@pobox.com.
Suggestions, articles, essays, etc., always welcome.
"It's the Year of the eBook!"
Michael