Chapter 11 of 11 · 871 words · ~4 min read

Part 11

1968: ASCII is the first character set encoding. 1971: Project Gutenberg is the first digital library. 1974: The internet takes off. 1977: UNIMARC is created as a common bibliographic format for library catalogs. 1984: Copyleft is a new license for computer software. 1990: The web is invented by Tim Berners-Lee. 1991/01: Unicode is a universal character set encoding for all languages. 1993/01: The Online Books Page is a list of free ebooks on the internet. 1993/06: Adobe launches PDF, Acrobat Reader and Adobe Acrobat. 1993/11: Mosaic is the first web browser. 1994: The first library website goes online. 1994: Bold publishers post free digital versions of copyrighted books. 1995/07: Amazon.com is the first main online bookstore. 1995: Mainstream print newspapers and magazines launch their own websites. 1996/03: The Palm Pilot is launched as the first PDA. 1996/04: The Internet Archive is founded to archive the web. 1996: Teachers explore new ways of teaching using the internet. 1997/01: Multimedia convergence is the topic of a symposium. 1997/04: E Ink begins developing a technology called electronic ink. 1997: Online publishing begins spreading. 1997: The Logos Dictionary goes online for free. 1998/05: 00h00.com sells books "only" in digital format. 1998: Library treasures like Beowulf go online. 1999/09: The Open eBook (OeB) format is created as a standard for ebooks. 1999/12: Britannica.com is available for free on the web (for a short time). 1999: Librarians become webmasters. 1999: Authors go digital. 2000/01: The Million Book Project wants to digitize one million books. 2000/01: Gemstar TV-Guide International buys the 00h00.com. 2000/02: yourDictionary.com is a major language portal. 2000/03: Mobipocket focuses on readers (software) and ebooks for PDAs. 2000/07: Non-English-speaking internet users reach 50%. 2000/07: Stephen King (self-)publishes a novel "only" on the web. 2000/08: Microsoft launches its own reader (software) and LIT format. 2000/09: GDT is a main bilingual (English, French) free translation dictionary. 2000/09: Numilog is an online bookstore selling "only" digital books. 2000/09: Handicapzero is a portal for the visually impaired and blind community. 2000/10: The Public Library of Science works on free online journals. 2000/10: Distributed Proofreaders helps in digitizing books from public domain. 2000/10: Gemstar TV-Guide International launches the Gemstar eBook. 2000/11: The British Library posts the digitized Bible of Gutenberg. 2001/01: Wikipedia is a main free online cooperative encyclopedia. 2001: Creative Commons works on new ways of respecting authors' rights. 2003/09: MIT offers its course materials for free in its OpenCourseWare. 2004/01: Project Gutenberg Europe is launched as a multilingual project. 2004/10: Google launches Google Print to rename it Google Books later on. 2005/04: Amazon.com buys Mobipocket, its software and ebooks. 2005/10: The Open Content Alliance works on a universal public digital library. 2006/08: Google Books has several partner libraries and publishers. 2006/08: The union catalog WorldCat is available for free on the web. 2006/10: Sony launches its new reading device, the Sony Reader. 2006/12: Microsoft launches Live Search Books (and drops the project later on). 2007/03: Citizendium works on a main "reliable" online cooperative encyclopedia. 2007/03: IATE is the new terminological database of the European community. 2007/05: The Encyclopedia of Life will document all known species of animals and plants. 2007/11: Amazon.com launches Kindle, its own reading device. 2008/05: Hachette Livre buys the digital bookstore Numilog. 2008/10: Google Books settles a lawsuit with associations of authors and publishers. 2008/11: Europeana starts as the European digital library. 2009/02: Amazon.com launches Kindle 2.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many thanks to all those who kindly answered my questions over the years. Most interviews were published by NEF (Net des études françaises / Net of French Studies), University of Toronto, Canada. They are available online <http://www.etudes- francaises.net/entretiens/index.html>. Some interviews were directly included in this book.

Many thanks to Nicolas Ancion, Alex Andrachmes, Guy Antoine, Silvaine Arabo, Arlette Attali, Marc Autret, Isabelle Aveline, Jean-Pierre Balpe, Emmanuel Barthe, Robert Beard, Michael Behrens, Michel Benoît, Guy Bertrand, Olivier Bogros, Christian Boitet, Bernard Boudic, Bakayoko Bourahima, Marie-Aude Bourson, Lucie de Boutiny, Anne-Cécile Brandenbourger, Alain Bron, Patrice Cailleaud, Tyler Chambers, Pascal Chartier, Richard Chotin, Alain Clavet, Jean-Pierre Cloutier, Jacques Coubard, Luc Dall’Armellina, Kushal Dave, Cynthia Delisle, Emilie Devriendt, Bruno Didier, Catherine Domain, Helen Dry, Bill Dunlap, Pierre-Noël Favennec, Gérard Fourestier, Pierre François Gagnon, Olivier Gainon, Jacques Gauchey, Raymond Godefroy, Muriel Goiran, Marcel Grangier, Barbara Grimes, Michael Hart, Roberto Hernández Montoya, Randy Hobler, Eduard Hovy, Christiane Jadelot, Gérard Jean-François, Jean-Paul, Anne-Bénédicte Joly, Brian King, Geoffrey Kingscott, Steven Krauwer, Gaëlle Lacaze, Michel Landaret, Hélène Larroche, Pierre Le Loarer, Claire Le Parco, Annie Le Saux, Fabrice Lhomme, Philippe Loubière, Pierre Magnenat, Xavier Malbreil, Alain Marchiset, Maria Victoria Marinetti, Michael Martin, Tim McKenna, Emmanuel Ménard, Yoshi Mikami, Jacky Minier, Jean- Philippe Mouton, Greg Newby, John Mark Ockerbloom, Caoimhín Ó Donnaíle, Jacques Pataillot, Alain Patez, Nicolas Pewny, Marie- Joseph Pierre, Hervé Ponsot, Olivier Pujol, Anissa Rachef, Peter Raggett, Patrick Rebollar, Philippe Renaut, Jean-Baptiste Rey, Philippe Rivière, Blaise Rosnay, Bruno de Sa Moreira, Pierre Schweitzer, Henk Slettenhaar, Murray Suid, June Thompson, Zina Tucsnak, François Vadrot, Christian Vandendorpe, Robert Ware, Russon Wooldridge, and Denis Zwirn.

Many thanks to Greg Chamberlain, Laurie Chamberlain, Kimberly Chung, Mike Cook, Michael Hart and Russon Wooldridge for revising previous versions of some parts. The author, whose mother tongue is French, is responsible for any remaining mistakes.