Michael S. Hart, Project Gutenberg Founder, Dead at 64

Michael Stern Hart

Michael S. Hart, the man credited with having invented the e-book (in 1971), but probably best known as the founder of the wonderful Project Gutenberg, is dead at age 64.  Mr. Hart was found dead at his home on September 6 after having suffered an apparent heart attack.

Details can be found at this full length Washington Post obituary:

Mr. Hart cobbled together a living with the money he earned as an adjunct professor and with grants and donations to Project Gutenberg. But he led a life of near poverty, Kahle said, and “basically lived off of cans of beans.”

Kahle and other friends recalled that Mr. Hart’s house in Urbana was stacked, floor to eye-height, with pillars of books.

The man who spent a lifetime digitizing literature lived amidst the hard copies, which he often sent home with visitors. It was one more way for him to share his books.

I, of course, knew nothing of Mr. Hart or his personal life until I read the Washington Post obituary I've linked to this post.  But...I will always remember how excited I was when I first discovered Project Gutenberg, and how I downloaded books directly to floppy discs so that I could carry them with me when I traveled on extended business trips.  The man was a true pioneer - and I only wish I had bothered to tell him that while he was with us.