Michael Stern Hart

Michael Hart (1947–2011) was an American writer often called the "father of the e-book." In 1971, at the University of Illinois, he typed the Declaration of Independence into a computer and uploaded it to the network, launching Project Gutenberg, which distributes free e-books, digitizes works in the public domain, and spreads them via the Internet. He devoted his life to promoting open access and died of a heart attack in Urbana, Illinois, in 2011. The library holds three of his works: A Brief History of the Internet, Price.Cost Indexes from 1875 to 1989 Estimated to 2010, and Project Gutenberg Newsletters 1999, covering Internet history, the compilation of price and cost indexes, and newsletters of Project Gutenberg, reflecting his focus on information dissemination and open access to materials.