Collection development ebooks

We here stake out a lofty claim for the value of the written word. We do so because we believe that it is possessed of enormous variety and usefulness, worthy of cherishing and keeping free. We realize that the application of these propositions may mean the dissemination of ideas and manners of expression that are repugnant to many persons. We do not state these propositions in the comfortable belief that what people read is unimportant.

We believe rather that what people read is deeply important; that ideas can be dangerous; but that the suppression of ideas is fatal to a democratic society. Freedom itself is a dangerous way of life, but it is ours. The Project Gutenberg collection includes a number of items that do not meet the public domain or formatting criteria described above.

The founder of Project Gutenberg, Michael Hart, invented eBooks in , and the online library grew substantially in the s and s. During that period of time, there were not many free collections of diverse literary works, and some of the modern standards we now rely on had not yet emerged such as Unicode for representing character sets and HTML for textual markup.

Project Gutenberg worked with many different content types, including audio books, digitized sheet music, some movies, and quite a few copyrighted items that were donated by contemporary authors. By the early s, it was clear that Project Gutenberg was not as well-suited for those different content types as for public domain literature. There are now many other outlets for these other types of works, including a self-publishing portal for contemporary authors that is operated by a Project Gutenberg affiliate.

Project Gutenberg will not remove or deprecate these previous items. They were all donated and accepted with the best of intentions, and with the understanding that Project Gutenberg would provide for their long-term stewardship and unlimited redistribution. Michael Hart expressed unending gratitude to all the people who contributed content, and who digitized previous works.

Project Gutenberg remains grateful to all of its contributors and volunteers. It was also endorsed by the Trustees of the Distributed Proofreaders Foundation. Day-to-day operation of the Project Gutenberg website, along with associated workflows and procedures, is by volunteers. The specific mechanisms applied to grow the Project Gutenberg collection are subject to change over time, within the guidance included in collection development policy. Contents What types of works are eligible? How is a Project Gutenberg eBook related to the source s it was based on?

What topics and subject matter are accepted? Historical context Status of this policy. Resources in school library collections are an integral component of the curriculum and represent diverse points of view on both current and historical issues.

These resources include materials that support the intellectual growth, personal development, individual interests and recreational needs of students. Which collections are most important to students?

To teachers? To administrators? Which topics are well-covered? Which are not? The benefits of weeding your library collection are numerous. The more appealing your collection becomes, the more the items will circulate. Be sure to schedule weeding activities for when you are least likely to be interrupted. EBSCO offers several digital resources to help fill in content area gaps and build a library collection that supports student learning, classroom instruction and extra-curricular interests.

Take our interactive tour to learn how EBSCO resources can fill in the gaps, helping you achieve your most important objectives. Skip to main navigation. EBSCO post.