Chapter 2

Executive Summary Project Gutenberg is the first and largest collection of eBooks made freely available to the public. The project philosophy is that the greatest value of computers is not their computing power, but rather their potential for the searchable storage and retrieval of library materials. The premise for the project is that any object - whether text, picture, sound or 3D image - that can be entered into a computer can be replicated indefinitely. The eBooks generated by Project Gutenberg are stored on two main servers and can then be downloaded to local servers around the world. This case study differs form many other ERPANET studies in that the project is volunteer-driven. As such, there are no financial or business incentives to preserve the eBooks. The real incentive lies in the belief that literary works in the public domain should be freely accessible to as many people as possible for as long as possible. By digitising everything in 'plain vanilla ASCII' as well as many other formats, the eBooks are readable by over 99% of computer operating systems. By avoiding proprietary formats whenever possible, Project Gutenberg also helps to guarantee the long-term survival of the bit streams of the eBooks. The combination of open formats and the proliferation of copies downloaded around the world should ensure that the Project Gutenberg eBooks currently in existence are still accessible far into the future.