Title: Project Gutenberg: The First Open Publishing Initiative
Author: Ravi Gupta
Publisher: www.i4donline.net
URL: http://i4donline.net/feb08/feb08.pdf
Abstract
The article introduces the concept of open publishing as it features the first open publishing initiative - Project Gutenberg. Open Publishing was defined in this article as a process of creating news, story, or other content that is transparent to the readers. And as described by the author, Project Gutenberg falls under the definition of open publishing, as it ensures the transparency, originality and operational effectiveness for many authors, editors and publishers, on top of digitizing, storing and managing old books and rare manuscripts.It promotes open access system and make available copyright free e-books for downloading. Readers of Project Gutenberg are given the opportunity to read old and excellent writers like Chaucer, Dante, Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Bronte, Agatha Christie and many more online.
Project Gutenberg continues to expand its reach as e-repositories in various regions of the globe - Australia, Europe, Canada and the Philippines - continuously grow. Lastly, the initiative also encourages people to create their own editions, for sale, to give away free, or just for one's own use.
Three-point Learning
1. In open publishing, the traditional role of editors is modified into a minimalist selection process. Librarians simply call this process as collection development.
2. Open Publishing promotes Knowledge Economy as it encourages people to get involved in creating, developing and disseminating knowledge without so much limitations.
3. Copyright issues on freely accessible journals/articles gave birth to some interesting software and development tools.
Application
The author mentioned that open publishing is still on its budding stage. And as an individual in the field of library and information science, it is my responsibility to understand and make critical analyses on the subject matter - improving my capacity to share and make people aware of the pros and cons of open publishing. With more people informed, there could be a higher probability that more people would be engaged in enhancing the concept.
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