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Books Index update from #1,121 to #1,152. 

1997 was the first year we did not double production
of Etexts in quite some time, but on the other hand,
it was the first year other Etexts producers created
enough Etexts that our goal of getting 10,000 Etexts
online by the end of the year 2001 is still viable--
presuming we can gain some reciprocity with them, in
the matter of posting each other's Etexts.

Many of these other Etext operations have taken some
different approaches to the creation or distribution
of Etexts than anyone might have envisioned just the
smallest number of years ago, from the changing of a
few words here and there to attempt to copyright the
Etexts posted on their sites, to simply requesting a
voluntary situation in which no one reposts the file
even though it is admittedly in the Public Domain.

This has been caused by the manners in which the Web
services propagate their own existence:

Hits have become the currency of the World Wide Web!

Therefore, in order to give full reciprocity to this
array of Web sites that think of hits as currency we
have to create hit counters that can be mounted on a
variety of Project Gutenberg sites and will monthly,
or even weekly, relay the proper number of hits to a
site whose Etexts we are distributing to the world.

Therefore, if you know any programmers who should be
somewhat interested in Project Gutenberg or the kind
of programming this would take, we would love to get
email from them at hart@pobox.com or gutenberg@. . .

While I was out on the West Coast in November, I got
some 9 gigabyte hard drives, and we will have larger
and more versatile hard drive systems for the upload
and download of our files.  If you are sending us an
Etext, just ask for the new locations if the ones we
have been using are not working properly.  The login
and password system for at least one of the new site
locations is somewhat different than before.

1998 is the first year I will be putting any serious
efforts into the administrative area known simply as

Schmoozing

If you could suggest anyone I should contact to work
on getting support for Project Gutenberg, please let
me know, as it has become very obvious to me that it
is not going to be that much longer that I can be an
overly central figure in Project Gutenberg.  If this
project is going to continue 10,000, 1,000, 100, 10,
or even five years from now it is going to take more
support than I can personally provide.

Once again my HUGE THANKS to all of you who help our
efforts to combat ignorance and illiteracy.

And here are the 32 December Project Gutenberg Etexts
which conclude the 384 Etexts for 1997.  We will make
/etext98 directories shortly, and will advise you how
to get the files from them when we announce 32 Etexts
for January, about a month from now.

HI am currently caught up with 80% of the email, and should do another 10% each day for the rest of the week, thus keeping some promises that I will be caught up by the end of the week, at least with email. This will make the rest of the month run at posting two Etexts per day, which I can do-- if nothing major comes up.

If you have been expecting email from me, and do not receive it Friday...please resend, and let me know it is a resent message.

We are currently creating the /etext98 directories, so those of you doing mirrors of our etexts should make sure that it comes up on your systems.

This particular note is going out on a number of listservers, including a new gutnberg listserver at the University of North Carolina, whom we will be indebted to for the duration.  A separate message will go out in a day
or two, reviewing 1997, and another message will go to the volunteers. I would NOT use THIS message to conclude whether you are on our listserver.

We will keep you updated on the new listservers and fileservers as things get underway for 1998.

Again our thanks to all those who have helped us get this far, and thanks to those who will be helping us through 1998!

Thanks!

Michael Stern Hart