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Great Literature for the Homebound

Wed, 03/08/2000 - 1:00am — Karen Stevenson
Description: 

Project Gutenberg was started by Michael Hart at the University of Illinois as an attempt to produce a massive collection of classic literature in an electronic format. Project participants have created e-texts from literature in the public domain, including the works of Shakespeare, Poe, Dante, Sir Arthur Donan Doyle, Lewis Carroll, and hundreds more. To make this information as universally-accessible as possible, all text is created in simple text files. The availability of the text on the Web means that a virtual library of great literature is easily accessible to the homebound. Because of the basic text formatting, the files should also be usable by blind and visually-impaired people dependent on text-readers to interpret Web information. Project Gutenberg is looking for volunteers who are willing to help them convert other books to e-texts, a great project for a computer-savvy older person interested in volunteer work which can be done from home.

Project Gutenberg was started by Michael Hart at the University of Illinois as an attempt to produce a massive collection of classic literature in an electronic format. Project participants have created e-texts from literature in the public domain, including the works of Shakespeare, Poe, Dante, Sir Arthur Donan Doyle, Lewis Carroll, and hundreds more. To make this information as universally-accessible as possible, all text is created in simple text files. The availability of the text on the Web means that a virtual library of great literature is easily accessible to the homebound. Because of the basic text formatting, the files should also be usable by blind and visually-impaired people dependent on text-readers to interpret Web information. Project Gutenberg is looking for volunteers who are willing to help them convert other books to e-texts, a great project for a computer-savvy older person interested in volunteer work which can be done from home.