However, here are some key figures and organizations that played significant roles:
Early Pioneers:
* Michael Hart (1971): Considered the "father" of the digital book, Hart, a student at the University of Illinois, created the first digital book, the *Declaration of Independence*. This was an early example of a digitized text.
* Project Gutenberg (1971): Founded by Hart, this non-profit project aims to create a library of free electronic books. It's one of the oldest and most prolific digital book projects, with millions of titles available.
Major Players in the 2000s:
* Google Books (2004): Google launched a program to scan millions of books from libraries and archives, making them searchable online. This project faced legal challenges, but it significantly increased the availability of digitized books.
* The Internet Archive (1996): This non-profit organization, with its "Internet Archive" and "Open Library" projects, actively digitized books and provided access to them for free.
* Amazon Kindle (2007): While not strictly digitizing books themselves, Amazon's e-reader and its Kindle Store made accessing digital books convenient and accessible to a wider audience.
Recent Developments:
* Open Access initiatives: Several initiatives focus on making scholarly works freely available online, including repositories like PubMed Central for scientific articles and the Open Access movement.
Other Important Factors:
* Technological advancements: The development of affordable scanners, digital storage, and high-speed internet connections made large-scale digitization possible.
* Shifting reading habits: The growing popularity of digital reading formats drove demand for digitized books.
While these are some of the key figures and organizations involved, it's important to remember that the digitization of books is an ongoing process with many contributors. It has been driven by a combination of technological, societal, and economic forces.