Today I found out that Project Gutenberg's founder,
If you are not familiar with Project Gutenberg, it is in my opinion one of the greatest gifts that has ever been given to humankind! A massive online library of ebooks in many different formats that one can either read on line or save on your PC to read later. In 1999 I went on line for the first time. I found Project Gutenberg within hours of going online. The first thing I downloaded was The Wonders of the Invisible World by Cotton Mather and Increase Mather. It was one of the most important moments in my life at that time. I went on a massive book downloading spree on Project Gutenberg. I fell in love with the idea of ebooks. Do not get me wrong, there is nothing in this world that will ever replace the feel, the smell, the visual joy of a good old fashioned bound book. But the very idea of having all the worlds best (and sometimes not the best) literature available to one for free is just mind boggling!
I feel bad that I never had the forethought to personally thank Mr. Hart for his great generosity to me and the world. I feel so sad that he passed and I never told this man that I did not know how much he meant to me. It will not make up for my not having done so, but I will now tell the world how much what this man did meant to me. On July 4, 1971, Michael Hart was given a copy of United States Declaration of Independence.
He typed the text into the computer but was told that it would be unacceptable to transmit it to numerous people at once via e-mail. Thus, to avoid crashing the system, he made the text available for people to download instead. This was the beginning of Project Gutenberg.
Michael Hart exhibited true patriotism, that always gave and never took. a quiet patriot that never tooted his own horn. A patriot that was beyond politics.He always supported the rights of everybody to have free access to books, that broke beyond the barriers of age, ethnicity, and income level. This man truly deserved the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Nobel peace prize, but he would never have been considered because he was not making any wealthy people wealthier with his great works for mankind. He did all of this at no coast to the tax payers, bringing some of the worlds finest free literature and rare books to those who had little access or recourse. In my opinion he was a true American hero. But Project Gutenberg does not end with him, praise also goes out to all those many people who wrote code and transcribed texts and especially those that will be doing so in Michael Hart's memory in the future. To all these people I would like to thank you for your good work with the project then and in the future..
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