In an obituary posted on the Project Gutenberg website, Dr. Gregory B. Newby writes:

Hart was best known for his 1971 invention of electronic books, or eBooks. He founded Project Gutenberg, which is recognized as one of the earliest and longest-lasting online literary projects. He often told this story of how he had the idea for eBooks. He had been granted access to significant computing power at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. On July 4 1971, after being inspired by a free printed copy of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, he decided to type the text into a computer, and to transmit it to other users on the computer network. From this beginning, the digitization and distribution of literature was to be Hart’s life’s work, spanning over 40 years.

In 1998, Mark Frauenfelder wrote a profile of Hart for Wired in which Hart is quoted as saying, “there’s going to be some gizmo that kids carry around in their back pocket that has everything in it – including our books, if they want.”  Early pioneers like Vannevar Bush envisioned electronic devices as far back as 1945 that would store massive volumes of books electronically.  Hart, however, possessed that rare mix of both foresight and gumption to help make this vision a reality.

As expressed in his obituary, making literature “available to all people” was something Hart wished to help others strive towards.  Perhaps the truest expression of Hart’s wish is a commitment to the distribution of ideas across countless platforms, i.e., eBooks, print, blogs, spoken word, etc.  Personally, I feel that in order to make literature available to all people the distribution mechanisms should work in concert with one another and never be limited to one source.  Learning, I believe, should remain impartial to any one file format or distribution mechanism – eBook or otherwise.

With that said, I think that as we enter a new age marked by the proliferation of electronic books and a growing host of eBook reading “gizmo[s],” let’s not forget to take a few moments to honor pioneers like Michael Hart who have remained steadfast in their commitment to the distribution of literature and ideas.

As authors out in the world, I bet most of you think about the changing publishing industry on a semi-daily basis. But, have you stopped to consider how those changes are sculpting future generation’s education?

Everyday, new stories pop up about students using e-versions of their text books to learn with, like those at Wilkes University and Northern Michigan University. Some schools, like Cushing Academy in Boston, have even gotten rid of their libraries completely in favor of e-readers.

Well, 12 year old Kyle Nelson, a student from Millennium Charter Academy in Mount Airy NC,  is living out these changes in his daily education. Nelson, wanting to know more about the companies shaking up the publishing industry and the technology behind them, went straight to the source.

On February 18th, Nelson came to Lulu and got the chance to interview our team members Tracey and Allison.

“He was so curious about the future of the industry,” says Allison. “He wanted to know all about eBooks and digital publishing.”

Tracey and Allison gave Nelson a tour, walked him through Lulu’s publishing process, and sent him home with a goodie bag and tons of information. Nelson plans to present to his classmates later this month.

“He was super smart and a sweet kid,” says Allison. “He was excited to get to pitch Lulu to a whole new generation of kids.”

Lulu is great for educators and their students too because it’s always free to make revisions and teachers get to set their own price for their content. This ensures that students always receive the most up-to-date information at a cost significantly lower than your average text book, but at the same great quality. Some teachers even offer supplementary materials as free eBooks to download. All of the control is in the teacher’s hands to provide a more structured learning experience. To learn more, head over to our education portal at www.lulu.com/education.

It’s time to make your way in the world, earn a living and impress the world with your education. If you wrote an undergraduate thesis, master’s project or doctoral dissertation, Lulu can help on two fronts: earning cash and spreading knowledge.

It’s free and easy to upload your thesis onto Lulu. And getting a professional-quality bound copy of it delivered to your doorstep is quick. Moreover, we offer services that can create a professionally designed cover specifically for your work. To get your research out there, we can assign your work an ISBN and even get it listed on the Apple iPad iBookstore. Most importantly, by publishing on Lulu you retain control of all copyright and permission settings. You determine who can view your work, and when. If you feel that publishing your thesis, final project or dissertation on Lulu sounds like a viable option for you, then please read the steps below for more information on how to get started.

Before you start
First and foremost, check with your department, committee chairs or advisor on any rules you must follow for publishing your academic work. Requirements vary across departments and schools.

Browse Lulu’s catalog
You might find it helpful to browse lulu.com to see what other students have published. From M.F.A. final projects to Ph.D dissertations, Lulu has an extensive catalog of student work. For instance, Yale University has a collection of Ph.D. theses, Master’s theses, and senior theses as well as a community discussion forum that can be accessed here: http://stores.lulu.com/yaledissertations.If your project is more creative in nature, then you might read “Graduate Student’s thesis project yields Children’s book.” You might also want to read about University at Albany alum Rashaun J. Allen who used Lulu to publish his collection of poems entitled “A Walk Through Brooklyn.”

Read reviews from other students
Check out what other students have said about publishing their work on Lulu. See why this student chose to publish a 300-page thesis with Lulu instead of taking it “to the binders” or why this student chose Lulu over a local print shop. These reviews might help answer any questions you have.

Protecting your research
If you have concerns about copyrighting your work, take a look at Nick Popio’s article,  “Copyrighting Your Work 101.” Some graduate schools require that you copyright your work before publishing, so make sure you take the appropriate steps to protect your work. At the very least, it is recommended that you include a copyright notice on your thesis, i.e., Copyright 2010, John Doe or ©, John Doe. Please note that there is a possibility that posting your dissertation or thesis online could prevent it from later being accepted by professional journals. As such, please make sure to consult with your advisor and/or committee in order to make the most informed publishing decision that will not only meet your immediate goals, but long-term ones as well.

Determining who will have access to your work
There are three general availability settings you can assign to your project: private, direct and general. These permission levels can be set to control who can access your project, and these settings can easily be changed anytime. You might wish to keep your project private at first, print a proof copy for your advisor or committee members and update the access permissions after you’ve been granted final approval to publish. Or, you might want to assign direct access to your work and email the book’s URL to select readers for feedback and peer review before making it available to the general public. Whatever you decide, you maintain full control over who sees your work and when.

Extra services
As mentioned above, whether you need a custom cover design, help obtaining an ISBN or someone to convert your thesis to ePub format to get it into Apple’s iBookstore for the iPad, Lulu has a number of services to help you with all stages of your project. Lulu also has tools and services dedicated specifically to authors in education; see http://www.lulu.com/education for more details.

Promoting your thesis
Once your project is open to the public, you might want to add tags and keywords to your product description — doing so will help increase the chances that users will find your work when searching on terms pertinent to your topic.  Now that graduation is upon us, hopefully this post will make one of the many decisions you have to make a little easier. Regardless of what path you choose, Lulu can help showcase all the hard work and effort you put into your academic career.

Best of luck!

Our events team, having experience with other educational shows, understood the importance that Lulu can play in the classroom. Giving students the ability to gather theses in a professional manner was a huge appeal to those who stopped by the booth. There were even some who came prepared with written manuscripts! As the day went on it was evident that attendees were happy to see us there.

The show lasted for just a day but in that short time we managed to spread an awareness of Lulu to all who stopped by. As people left the booth more would stop by and we certainly acknowledged the fact that it was a great indication of where we’re going in the educational world.Take a look at who we met at the show!

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As most of you know Lulu’s services not only attract individual authors/creators but can appeal to many others; like teachers. So here’s the scenario, you’re a teacher and you use the same old tired textbook every year. You’re not only tired of it, but your students are too. So why not create your own? Lulu enables teachers to be able to compile course materials and any other relevant matter in one central piece versus using the same irrelevant materials over and over again.

With this being our first time at TCCTA, teachers were surprised to see us there but understood the perfect placement we have at such an educational show. With over 6,000 members it was a great opportunity for Lulu to continue to reach out to the educational world full of potential Lulus! We want to make sure that at each conference Lulu attends we continue to stress our free services and easy applications. TCCTA has now been added to the list of successful educational conferences that we’ve attended and we’re excited to see what the next one brings.

If you know of any educational shows (or any other shows for that matter) feel free to let us know where you’d like to see us. Respond to this blog with your ideas.

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Kenia Caze