Last week I signed up to be a volunteer proofreader for Project Gutenberg (PG).

PG was founded in 1971 by Michael Hart with the mission of “encouraging the creation and distribution of ebooks”. The goals are to create a digital library of electronic texts that are (relatively [there are operating costs]) free, easily accessible via various formats, and are readable, searchable, and quotable. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization that operates on a reasonable budget–the bulk of funds going to servers and other tech fees.

There are lots of ways to volunteer, but I chose to be a proofreader (and sometimes monetary donator) because that’s where I’m able to make the most impact. I found Plucker, a program which enables offline viewing of HTML documents and ebooks on my PDA, and have been using PG more. Plus, I’m one of those anal folks who will read a book and find an error and it will drive me crazy that the editor didn’t catch it.

Proofreading for PG is done through Distributed Proofreaders, which breaks up the process of turning a paper book into an ebook into various stages. I’m a newbie, so I’m a level-1 proofreader. If I decide to continue with the project, I’ll move into level-2 proofreading and from there can move into the formatting levels. For the geek in me, it’s fun work.

If you find yourself with free time and you have a love for books, you might give proofreading for PG a try.