Live briefing
Everything about Project Gutenberg
Online digital book library
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 items in its collection are full texts of books or individual stories in the public domain. All files are free to access in an open format, available on almost any computer. As of 22 March 2026, Project Gutenberg had reached nearly 78,000 items in its collection of free eBooks. Wikipedia →
🧭 Start here: a 6-step reading path
- Read the overview: Project GutenbergA 5-minute orientation
- Skim a recent paper: Project Gutenberg: Enhancing Access to English Literary HeritageInfluential work since 2022
- Pick up a classic book: The PathfinderThe most-reprinted book on the subject
- Read the landmark paper: An Analysis of BERT (NLP) for Assisted Subject Indexing for Project GutenbergCited 14 times
- Go sideways: Distributed Proofreaders CanadaA closely related topic
- Go sideways: Project Gutenberg CanadaA closely related topic
📖 Definitions
No dictionary entry for this exact phrase.
🏆 Landmark papers (most cited)
An Analysis of BERT (NLP) for Assisted Subject Indexing for Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg: the Oldest Digital Library of the USA
Project Gutenberg Books Are Real
The Gutenberg‐e project: opportunities and challenges in publishing born‐digital monographs
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg
🆕 Influential since 2022
Project Gutenberg: Enhancing Access to English Literary Heritage
The Classical Model of Type-Token Systems Compared with Items from the Standardized Project Gutenberg Corpus
Developing Language and Communication Skills in Foreign Language Learning via Digital Resources for Reading (a Study of Storyweaver, Project Gutenberg, Manybooks)
📚 Books worth reading
The PathfinderJames Fenimore Cooper · 1800
A short history of ebooksMarie Lebert · 2021
40 years of Project Gutenberg. A mini guideMarie Lebert · 2011
This Book Is Overdue: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us AllMarilyn Johnson · 2010
David Copperfield [adaptation]Grace A. Benscoter, John Gehlmann · 1945
Achieving Impossible Things With Free Culture and Commons-Based EnterpriseTerry Hancock · 2009
Ranked by number of editions on Open Library, a rough measure of how lasting a book is.
🔗 Related topics
- Distributed Proofreaders Canada Distributed Proofreaders Canada (DP Canada) is a volunteer organization that transfers books into electronic format and releases them as public domain…
- Project Gutenberg Canada Project Gutenberg Canada, also known as Project Gutenburg of Canada, was a Canadian digital library founded July 1, 2007 by Dr. Mark Akrigg. The website…
- Distributed Proofreaders Distributed Proofreaders (commonly abbreviated as DP or PGDP) is a web-based project that supports the development of e-texts for Project Gutenberg by…
- Michael S. Hart Michael Stern Hart (March 8, 1947 – September 6, 2011) was an American author credited with the invention of the e-book, and who founded Project Gutenberg…
- Standard Ebooks Standard Ebooks is an open source, volunteer-driven project to create and publish high-quality, fully featured, and accessible ebooks of works in the public…
- LibriVox Sample The first chapter of A Study in Scarlet, the first novel about Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle read by LibriVox volunteer David Clarke. Problems…
- Project Gutenberg Australia Project Gutenberg Australia, abbreviated as PGA, is an Internet site which was founded in 2001 by Colin Choat. It is a sister site of Project Gutenberg…
- Ebook An ebook (short for "electronic book"), also spelled as e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in electronic form, consisting of text, images…