Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

 

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit organization (since 2000) that maintains an electronic library of public domain materials that have been digitized (converted into electronic books or e-books) by volunteers. These materials are archived for download from the organization’s website (www.gutenberg.org).

The project got its start on July 4, 1971, when Michael Hart, a student at the University of Illinois, began typing the US Declaration of Independence into the school’s computer system for distribution free of charge. He soon followed with the works of William Shakespeare and the Bible. Thus began Project Gutenberg, the oldest digital library.

Over the next 20 years, Hart transcribed about 100 books before the spread of the Internet allowed for a vast international expansion in interest. The project grew to include hundreds and then thousands of volunteers around the world, and Hart took on more administrative duties, including fund-raising to maintain a website. The number of public works scanned (beginning in the 1990s) or transcribed steadily grew to 1,000 (1997), 10,000 (2003), 20,000 (2006) and 40,000 (2011).

In 2000, Charles Franks founded Distributed Proofreaders, a web-based program for parsing the difficult task of proofreading scanned texts for Project Gutenberg. In 2002 Distributed Proofreaders became part of Project Gutenberg. The ability to distribute the proofreading task among volunteer teams was reported in 2002 by Slashdot, a popular technology website. As word spread, hundreds of teams formed to scan and proofread new works. By 2009, roughly half of all Project Gutenberg books had been handled by using Distributed Proofreaders.

The vast majority of materials in the Project Gutenberg library are in English, although the addition of materials in other languages was started in 1997. In 2004, Project Gutenberg Europe and Distributed Proofreaders Europe were formed to facilitate the process of adding more non-English works. Project Gutenberg now includes works in more than 50 languages.

It is noteworthy that the copyright on any book published before 1923 expired no more than 75 years later, at which point it entered the public domain. Any work published between 1923 and 1977 retains its copyright for 95 years. The copyright on any work published in later years expires 70 years after the author’s death or 95 years after publication in the case of a corporate work.

ICAEW - Timeline of the Accountancy Profession in the United Kingdom

The comprehensive ICAEW Timeline explores events from ancient times through to the first half of the nineteenth century (for detailed events, click on the red titles – for example, 1853 - 1880 and 1968 - 2003. The Timeline shows when accountancy starts to take form as an organized profession, growing primarily as a result of the commercial and legal activity of bankruptcy, insolvency and the winding up of companies all the way to the current day.

ICAEW - Accounting History Gateway and Accountants’ Directory for 1877

The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) has created an Accounting History Gateway. The gateway was developed

as an easy access point to historical materials available from, or about, the Institute. One of these historical documents is the Accountants’ Directory for 1877 compiled by Alfred Harper and published by Williams & Strahan. The directory provides a snapshot of the membership of the first professional bodies for accountancy. Professional bodies were established in Edinburgh and Glasgow (1853) and Aberdeen (1866). These were followed by the Incorporated Society of Liverpool Accountants (1870), the Institute of Accountants (1870), Manchester Institute of Accountants (1871) and the Society of Accountants (1872). Another society was established in Sheffield during 1877, but this falls after the compilation date for this edition of the directory.