GET INVOLVED!
If you find these online books enjoyable and useful, we encourage you
to get involved. Here are a few ways you can do so.
- Join others who care about free online books. For
example, the Book People mailing list is a forum we have run for people to
talk about online books and related issues with other folks
who produce and use free online books. We're winding down that forum
now, but will have more information about other forums here shortly.
- Give feedback to the people who are putting books online.
Many of us do this as a labor of love, and we appreciate knowing when
our work has been useful, or if there are problems that need to be fixed.
- Suggest more books to go online. See
this page for information on how to do this.
- Tell us where we can find more online books. See
this page for how you can tell us about
such books.
- Put books online! It can be a great way to "get close" to
a favorite book, and your work, once done, can be read by millions.
- See this guide for information on how
to put books online.
- Don't have time to do a full book? How about putting a page or two online? With other volunteers doing the other pages, a book can still go online quickly.
See the Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders Project site for more information.
- Or if you prefer, you can contribute
a section to one of the books we're now working on at the
Celebration of Women Writers. See the top of that site
for more details.
- If you are an author, consider giving permission for your books to
go online. An online version of your book can reach readers worldwide,
and make your writing available to all long after print copies leave
bookstore shelves. (If your book is hard to find in stores, an online
version with ordering capabilities may even spur sales!
Here is a report from Baen Books showing sales increases after
some of their books went online for free.)
If you're interested in giving permission for free online editions,
either now or in the future, write to onlinebooks@pobox.upenn.edu.
Authors can donate their works to the public in a variety of ways,
ranging from putting the work into the
public domain to retaining copyright and donating a license.
The Creative Commons has a page on approaches
that one can use.
- Support free speech, fair use, and the public domain. They're
all good for society, and they also
make it possible to put books online more easily. See
this page
for more details about what you can do.
- Give material support to your favorite online book project.
The folks who put up books online for free often appreciate donations
of money, books, and equipment. Some of the groups soliciting support
include:
The links above go to pages giving more information about how you can help
them.
- Support your local library. Libraries are vital local resources
for literacy, learning, and community-building. (Many of them also provide
free access to Internet resources like this one.)
Libraries need volunteers, friends, and
advocates. Contact your local Friends of the Library group, if there is one,
to find out more.
(The Friends of Libraries USA site
also has some useful resources
for starting or running such a group.)
- Send books to needy libraries. Not everyone has
computer access, and print books are still needed in many areas
locally, and across the world, to help in education and literacy.
The American Library Association has a fact
sheet that can help you find organizations that help get books
into the hands of people who need them.
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The Inside Story
Edited by John Mark Ockerbloom (onlinebooks@pobox.upenn.edu)
OBP copyrights and licenses