Apple Reportedly Adding Gutenberg Project Books To iBookstore Catalog

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Its almost the time when we will be able to walk into an Apple store, purchase an iPad and walk out the door with it. In other words, its almost April 3. Of course, despite how close the actually availability is, that has not slowed down the rumors and leaks surrounding the launch. If anything it has just speed them up. Anyway, the latest is dealing with the iBookstore and the Gutenberg Project.

Now for those that may not be familiar with what the Gutenberg Project is — in short it is an online library, but a little more specifically, it is a library that has over 30,000 free ebooks that you can download, read and share with friends. Additionally, the books are available in a few formats including ePub, Mobipocket, HTML and simple text, which means they are available to be read on a wide variety of devices.

Now, fast forward to the launch of the iPad and the iBookstore and the latest information is suggesting that Apple is adding those 30,000 eBooks into the iBookstore catalog. As for what kind of titles you may find available in the Gutenberg Project, well, since they are all public domain the books should be considered classics. But that means you will have access to goodies such as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Gulliver’s Travels, Sherlock Holmes as well as about 29,997 more.

Additionally, since the iPad offers support for the ePub format users will be able to import and read many other titles they may find online. That said, having the Gutenberg Project books available without having to worry about importing is a simple, but nice little perk. All things considered, and while I am still not convinced that the iPad will be able to replace my Kindle as a reading device, you have to admit that it will not suffer from any shortage of available reading material. After all iPad users will have access to the iBookstore (with the Gutenberg Project titles), the Kindle store, the Barnes & Noble eBook store as well as a variety of other reader apps including Stanza.