Books are evolving. As we endeavor to become a nearly paperless society, it's no wonder that ebooks are more popular than ever. What you may not know is that the written word was ushered into the next generation of technology decades ago through the efforts of a forward-thinking individual at the University of Illinois.
In 1971, Michael Hart created Project Gutenberg,the first producer of free electronic books. The idea for Project Gutenberg was sparked by Hart's desire to pay back his university for the invaluable "computer time" he was given as part of his course of study. He decided that "the greatest value created by computers would not be computing, but would be the storage, retrieval, and searching of what was stored in our libraries." (Quotes taken from the Project Gutenberg website.) In fact, Hart invented ebooks in 1971 when he first typed the Declaration of Independence and sent the document to everyone on his network. Read More...