Project Gutenberg: Pros and Cons

For this entry, I thought it would be helpful to get more into detail on my absolute favorite eBook download site for finding vintage novels. I have very good reasons for liking it so much, and I hope they will also resonate with you, but before I begin, I'd like to elaborate more on what Project Gutenberg is, its history, and what its purpose and function is in the online book ecosystem.

What is Project Gutenberg?

Project Gutenberg is a website offering 50,000 free eBooks for downloading onto any device you choose. The books are no longer copyright protected, so you can also share them with friends or use them for any other purpose you have in mind. This includes a lot of pre-1923 vintage novels, (although, for the most part, they do tend to avoid anything published after that date, since there are some gray areas in those books as far as copyright law is concerned.)

Founder Michael S. Hart started Gutenberg on December 1, 1971, as an effort to digitize some of the most widely consulted books and make them easily available to whoever needed to use them. His first document was the Declaration of Independence, and since then he has curated and digitized a massive number of eBooks. Even after his passing in 2011, Project Gutenberg is still continuing his legacy by churning out numerous free eBooks every day.

As for what its purpose is, I can't even begin to tell you how many different people for how many different walks of life need it and depend on it. From the casual reader, to the seasoned publisher, to the graduate student, to the historical author, the uses for Gutenberg as a source of information or reading pleasure are always appreciated. Its function as a repository of information that one can access anytime, anywhere, for absolutely no charge, is, to my mind, equal to Wikipedia.

And now for the pros and cons.

In this section I will name a few things that are great about Project Gutenberg, and I'll follow that up with things that might need some improvement if more people are going to enjoy it. These lists reflect my personal observations and experiences, and are only my opinion.

Pros:

• There's absolutely no charge for any of the eBooks offered on the website. Yes, you heard me right! There is none. They are all free for the taking. (They do ask for donations, though, so please spread some love.)
• They are painstakingly proofread by a team of volunteers. This is a God-send. Whenever you look at any other website that offers free eBooks in this category, you'll often find that proofreading is deprioritized in favor of image scans of the physical pages themselves. This isn't bad, but it does limit how you can read their books, since you can only look at the static page images. Gutenberg, on the other hand, offers digital text that they extract from the books and then, with the help of their volunteers, (and were talking thousands of them,) polish thoroughly. This text reads exceedingly well, and can be viewed on a plethora of different devices, depending on which file format you download. (But they do offer all the popular formats, including kindle and ePub.)
• They are also very well formatted. These guys actually take the time to look at the original book and emulate the formatting as they see it. Quotes, captions, graphics, tables, drop-caps, etc. are placed and sized in a very attractive way that accurately reflects the experience you would have if you were to read the original edition yourself. (There are limitations on that in some cases, but they really do try, and they are sincere about it. You can just tell.)
• The books are logically organized. You can browse their catalog by author, title, or language; or you can look at their various categories, (which they also call "bookshelves.") This is helpful if you want to find novels, but you would have to poke and prod some because they don't have a section for novels, the closest thing being their "fiction bookshelf." (Nonetheless, that could be an excellent place to start.)

Cons:

• It would be nice if they also offered print editions. This might not work for them logistically, but I can definitely see print books being a sort of fundraising tactic, where they get print versions of their books made on demand, and they would charge a fair price for them, the profits going directly toward funding their efforts. So, essentially, it would be kind of like a donation with an added incentive. Also, I'm sure it wouldn't be at all difficult for them to persuade potential buyers, considering all the junk reprints that are already being made. (Please see one of my previous entries, "Steer clear of archival reprints!" for more on this issue.)
• Their website could use a revamp. I read a blog entry once recently that commented that the Gutenberg website looked "depressing." While I wouldn't go that far, (as I have seen much more dismal-looking sites out there,) I do think that a more lively look would do them some good. (And in light of all these fancy-looking "responsive HTML" websites that are popping up right and left, I think that would give them a serious leg up.) I also think that a slightly more efficient browsing and search interface would allow people to find exactly what they want in much less time. As I mentioned, their browsing and search functionality is pretty good, but there is still some room for improvement.
• Sometimes you can still run into formatting errors. To my recollection, I've only ever had one bad experience with Gutenberg, and that was on an old magazine that they had recently made available. I downloaded the ePub version on my Smartphone, and one of the block quotes in the book stretched past the edge of the screen, and I couldn't scroll to see the rest of it. Also, it isn't terribly uncommon for some books to not show all the italics, bolds, an diacritical marks that there should be. Occasionally you might run into some problems like that, but I would imagine that if you contacted them with any issues you find, (including spelling and grammatical errors, which also present themselves from time to time,) you would probably get through. With the exception of the block quote I just mentioned, these problems are not major interferences on your enjoyment of their books, (and lately they have gotten quite a bit better in this area.)

And that's it for my glowing review of Project Gutenberg. Please check them out it you haven't done so already. In the meantime, I've got a dinner to cook. (Yummm...)