Project Gutenberg
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Project Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive books, making them available in digital form. It matters because it preserves written works and provides free public access to literature that might otherwise be difficult or expensive to obtain.
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Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of books or individual stories in the public domain. All files can be accessed for free under an open format layout, available on almost any computer. As of 22 March 2026, Project Gutenberg had reached nearly 78,000 items in its collection of free eBooks.
The releases are available in plain text as well as other formats, such as HTML, EPUB, and MOBI. Most releases are in the English language, but many non-English works are also available. There are multiple affiliated projects that provide additional content, including region- and language-specific works. Project Gutenberg is closely affiliated with Distributed Proofreaders, an Internet-based community for proofreading scanned texts.