Ebooks turn 40 this year

Michael Hart (left) and Gregory Newby (right) of Project Gutenberg

End of January 2011.  Everybody who cares about ebooks is referring to the latest press release from Amazon, stating that books in Kindle format outsell paperback editions.

We can surely call it a “breakthrough”, but on the other hand it’s just another fact in 40 years of the history of ebooks. What we’d like to point out is that still not too many readers know about it. And that it should change this year.

Forty years. For many avid readers it’s an entire life. Try to place your life into the frame. How old were you in 1971? When have you learned about ebooks for the first time? Was is already at the time you were using mobile phones and had a broadband access to the web?

The ebook era didn’t start with the launch of a 1st generation Kindle (2007).
It’s not 4 years, but ten times longer. Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs are not fathers of ebooks. The father of ebooks is Michael S. Hart.

In 1971 Hart founded Project Gutenberg, a non-profit organization to encourage the creation and distribution of ebooks. First document to be digitized was the United States Declaration of Independence. It is widely recognized as a first ebook in the world.

It took 25 years to turn first 1000 titles into a digital form. Imagine an effort and passion behind that.

This year will be special not because of the Kindle/paperback ratio or the record number of iPads or Kindles sold, but because of the fact that ebooks enter their middle age–and they do better than ever before.

January 30th, 2011 | Source: Wikipedia