








rendered as PDF files (...). The difference? These files were prepared by
other eLibraries, not Project Gutenberg, and are using our worldwide
distribution network to be seen." (NEF Interview)

January 2004 > Project Gutenberg Europe

In Europe, Project Rastko, based in Belgrade, Serbia, launched Project
Gutenberg Europe (PG Europe) in January 2004, as well as Distributed
Proofreaders Europe (DP Europe), with a web interface in 12 languages.
100 ebooks were available in June 2005, and 500 ebooks in October 2008,
in several languages, as a reflection of European linguistic diversity.
eBooks were encoded in Unicode instead of ASCII, to take into account
many different alphabets.

January 2005 > eBook #15000 > The Life of Reason, by George Santayana

In January 2005, Project Gutenberg reached 15,000 ebooks. eBook #15000
was The Life of Reason (1906), by George Santayana.

The driving force behind Project Gutenberg has not only been great
authors, but also outstanding volunteers like Greg Newby, director and
CEO of the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (PGLAF) since
2001, and Marcello Perathoner, the webmaster and main software
developer of the www.gutenberg.org website.

July 2005 > eBooks in 42 languages

What about languages? There were ebooks in 25 languages in February
2004, and in 42 languages in July 2005, including Sanskrit and the
Mayan languages. The seven main languages--with more than 50 ebooks -
- were English (with 14,548 ebooks on 27 July 2005), French (577
ebooks), German (349 ebooks), Finnish (218 ebooks), Dutch (130 ebooks),
Spanish (103 ebooks), and Chinese (69 ebooks).

January 2006 > Project Gutenberg PrePrints

Project Gutenberg PrePrints was launched in January 2006 to collect
items submitted to Project Gutenberg which were interesting enough to
be available online, but not ready yet to be added to the main Project
Gutenberg collection, because of missing data, low-quality files,
formats which were not handy, etc. 379 ebooks were available in
December 2006, and 2,020 ebooks in February 2009.

December 2006 > eBook #20000 > Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
(audiobook), by Jules Verne

In December 2006, Project Gutenberg reached 20,000 ebooks. eBook #20000
was the audiobook of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (Vingt mille
lieues sous les mers, 1869), by Jules Verne, in its English version. If
32 years and 3 months, from July 1971 to October 2003, were necessary
to produce the first 10,000 ebooks, 3 years and 2 months, from October
2003 to December 2006, were necessary to produce the next 10,000
ebooks. There were ebooks in 50 languages in December 2006.

December 2006 > Project Gutenberg News, the official blog

In December 2006, Mike Cook launched the blog Project Gutenberg News as
"the news portal for gutenberg.org", to complement the existing weekly
and monthly newsletters. The blog gave for example the production
numbers since 2001. The weekly production was 24 ebooks in 2001, 47
ebooks in 2002, 79 ebooks in 2003, 78 ebooks in 2004, 58 ebooks in
2005, and 80 ebooks in 2006. The monthly production was 104 ebooks in
2001, 203 ebooks in 2002, 348 ebooks in 2003, 338 ebooks in 2004, 252
ebooks in 2005, and 345 ebooks in 2006. The yearly production was 1,244
ebooks in 2001, 2,432 ebooks in 2002, 4,176 ebooks in 2003, 4,058
ebooks in 2004, 3,019 ebooks in 2005, and 4,141 ebooks in 2006.

July 2007 > Project Gutenberg Canada

Project Gutenberg Canada (PGC) was launched on 1st July 2007, on Canada
Day, by Michael Shepard and David Jones.

December 2007 > Distributed Proofreaders Canada

Distributed Proofreaders Canada (DPC) started production in December
2007. There were 100 ebooks in March 2008, in English, French and
Italian.

2007 > 15 million ebooks by snail mail

Project Gutenberg sent out 15 million ebooks via CDs and DVDs by snail
mail in 2007. The DVD released in July 2006 included 17,000 ebooks. CD
and DVD files  were also generated as ISO files (since 2005) to be
downloaded for burning CDs or DVDs for family, friends, neighbors,
schools and libraries.

April 2008 > eBook #25000 > English Book Collectors, by William Younger
Fletcher

Project Gutenberg reached 25,000 books in April 2008. eBook #25000 was
English Book Collectors (1902), by William Younger Fletcher.

October 2009 > eBook #30000 > The Bird Book, by Chester Albert Reed

Project Gutenberg reached 30,000 books in October 2009. eBook #30000
was The Bird Book (1915), by Chester Albert Reed.

October 2010 > 10th anniversary of Distributed Proofreaders

Distributed Proofreaders celebrated its 10th anniversary in October
2010, with more than 18,000 books digitized and proofread during ten
years by thousands of volunteers. We sent them a digital bilingual
anniversary card from Paris, France.

December 2010 > 33,000 high-quality ebooks

In December 2010, Project Gutenberg offered 33,000 high-quality ebooks,
with tens of thousands of downloads every day, websites in the United
States, in Australia, in Europe and in Canada, and 40 mirror sites
worldwide. eBooks are available in various formats for any electronic
device (computer, PDA, mobile phone, smartphone and ebook reader).

April 2011 > 20,000 ebooks processed by Distributed Proofreaders

In April 2011, Distributed Proofreaders celebrated "20,000 unique
titles [sent] to the bookshelves of Project Gutenberg, free to enjoy
for everybody. (...) Distributed Proofreaders is a truly international
community. People from over the world contribute." (excerpt from the
website)

April 2011 > 30,000 English ebooks in Project Gutenberg

The 30,000th English-language ebook was posted on 12 April 2011. Its
title was The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia (1903), by
Archibald Henry Sace. eBooks were also available in 59 other languages.
13 languages were lucky enough to have more than 50 books. 46 languages
had up to 50 books. Please join Distributed Proofreaders and
contribute.

June 2011 > 36,000 ebooks in many languages

In June 2011, the 14 main languages were English (with 30,569 ebooks on
30 June 2011), French (1,821 ebooks), German (772 ebooks), Finnish (589
ebooks), Dutch (534 ebooks), Portuguese (515 ebooks), Chinese (405
ebooks), Spanish (307 ebooks), Italian (289 ebooks), Greek (144
ebooks), Latin (79 ebooks), Esperanto (74 ebooks), Swedish (68 ebooks),
and Tagalog (55 ebooks).

4 July 2011 > 40th anniversary of Project Gutenberg

---

Text: Marie Lebert
Cover: Jean-Paul Pfirrmann
Copyrighted images:  @folio Project, Distributed Proofreaders (all
websites), Librairie Ulysse, Claude Rayon, Project Gutenberg (all
websites), University of Illinois
Public domain images: Wikipedia

Permanent link:
http://www.gutenbergnews.org/documents/pg-40th-anniversary.pdf


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