iBooks’ very sweet price points are not the only surprise Apple kept for the iPad launch. Indeed, while we already knew the iPad can read and import eBooks in the ePub format, it probably won’t be as necessary as we thought; as the iBookstore already features the Gutenberg Project catalog for free.
If you’re not familiar with the Gutenberg Project, it’s a free online digital library supported by volunteers. This library already includes over 30,000 free eBooks from the public domain; it is an amazing popular resource.
Well, when checking out Apple’s iBookstore, I noticed that Apple has decided to include these directly. I obviously haven’t had the chance to count them, but it appears that the entire catalog is available for free download.
This is obviously very good news, making it easier than ever to access a lot of good literature on the cheap.
Check back later as we might have been shown some more…
Excellent News! I Lv ya iPad. Mine is on the way.
Okay maybe I will start reading thanks to the iPad =)
Excellent move by Apple. Why should Google have all the public domain love? And why should Kindle use a closed format?
I am sure Amazon will have some similar “upgrades” for Kindle 3.
I ❤
Excellent news. I wish I had a job to be able to buy an iPad. Stupid economy!
It’s a marvelous idea, but I wonder how well formatted these books are. Many books are more than words strung end to end.
For a long time, Gutenberg resisted creating texts in anything other than plain vanilla ASCII. Right now, I’m reading what must be their version of one of the first (and greatest) spy thrillers, The Riddle of the Sands. What should be italics are tacky underlines before and after words. And the original book’s maps, vital in following this sailing adventure, are missing. It’s really only half a book. The iPad deserves better than that.
Also, creating something better is a hassle. The book format that iPad is using, ePub, is about as versatile as HTML 1.0 was. It doesn’t know how to properly deal with graphics, tables, or notes.
Let’s hope Apple spearheads an effort to improve ePub and develops an application that can create top-notch ePub books without requiring a knowledge of CSS or XML. It’d also be great is OS X could save documents to ePub as easily as it now does to PDF.
Gutenberg books are all FREE. Could be the reason they aren’t formatted in anything other than ASCII.
I’m guessing that within a few months, there will be a few more applications out there that will take full advantage of the iPads capabilities.
ePub is basically XHTML1 and CSS2 wrapped in a ZIP. It is equivalent to HTML4. It easily handles graphics and tables. One problem is most likely that the original XHTML is badly done for most books, usually due to bad converters. A second problem is that most ePub readers seem to be a disaster. This seems particularly the case for ebook readers for computers (which seem mostly aimed at doing conversions to different ebook formats).
Something tells me you have never checked out the iPhone app known as Eucalyptus! It pulls from the PG library and it renders AMAZINGLY. Really…. it’s like the best reader out for the iPhone IMHO. Unfortunately, it’s like 1o dollars, but you get access to all of PG and it really seems worth it to me cuz it looks so great and the page flipping simply could not be more realistic.
However, it has seemed to have dissappeared from the App Store at the time of this writing. I noticed this last week, but it may have happpened even earlier. I wonder if it has anything to do with the iBook Store? Interesting!
I will never, EVER understand why people state things without doing even the slightest amount of research first. I have never used Eucalyptus, but I Googled it and found eucalyptusapp.com, which has a graphic that states: “Eucalyptus is temporarily unavailable. We’re working to resolve the situation. It will be back soon!”
I think this is the best news I’ve heard about the iPad iBookstore so far! Can’t wait to get my hands on my iPad in Canada next month!
I would guess, or at least hope, that the iBooks store will carry the HTML versions of the Gutenberg Project’s offerings, many of which include illustrations.
And yes, the Gutenberg Project is all volunteer. I tried helping out for a bit but I wasn’t disciplined enough to keep putting in the time and effort. It takes a lot of work by smart, dedicated, organized people to turn a printed book into a decently formatted ebook. Those people are heroes of mine.
Now I have even more reason to lust after an iPad, oh dear…
There is no point iBook does not include it, since Stanza already allows you to download from Gutenberg Project directly.
Mine is on the way, too!!! I am so excited!!!
Perhaps the celebrations are premature. There are many titles that I can. Get at with stanza that I don’t see on my iPad. Donne, Blake, Tennyson. To name a few.
Ya, I never read tollbibgot my iPhone 4 with iBooks
So I just looked and it looks like iBookstore is now CampusBooks. It’s still free, but I’m wondering if it still contains the Gutenberg project books? I’m also wondering if it’s truly the same app?