Free Literacy

If you've been watching for the last couple of months, you'll have noted that I tend to support open-source literacy every occasion possible. Two biggies are, were, and hopefully will be the already named Google Booksearch and Scholar (scholarly journal search). Yet two others definitely warrent note: Project Gutenberg and Read Print. Both deal primarily in works for which the copyright has expired. The former, which is the oldest open-source literary body on the web (circa 1971, back before fire was invented), is truly enormous - think 17,000 volumes (give or take) at the time I'm writing this. Its astounding in scope. . . one of the greatest contributions of political liberalism and free competition of ideas in human history, quite frankly. Read Print, on the other hand, may not be for-profit, but it is affiliated with advertisers, notably Amazon. That said, its a crisp, clean site, a nice contrast to Project Gutenberg's far more utilitarian structure. Of course, its holdings are far less universal.

I've got a couple other sites worth checking. Specifically, the good ol' US of A's Library of Congress and the National Archives. The LoC has tons of information, most significally a link to THOMAS, the official repository of most congressional documents. The Archives, on the other hand, are particularly awesome because of the access they provide to the Federal Register, historically significant documents and presidential libraries.

You also might want to check out ibiblo, which is affiliated with Project Gutenberg. This site has historic archives, journals, and more ebooks.

Read.