I took the reins of MTP in early 2014. At that point, plenty of obvious Church classics like the Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt, Talmage’s The House of the Lord, The Lectures on Faith, History of the Church, History of Joseph Smith by his Mother, etc. etc. were not readily available in Kindle format from any free, reputable source, despite having been out-of-copyright for many years.

At this point, that problem has been solved. Obviously the Project Gutenberg catalog is still not comprehensive, but it’s not embarrassing either; the key things are there, along with a healthy sampling from the long tail. Few people are going to read everything on our Available Texts page and still want a lot more where that came from. (If you do, please get in touch–I imagine you are an interesting human being).)

So, where to now?

I do not anticipate adding a lot more books to Project Gutenberg. There are a few works that might be out of copyright due to non-renewal (which is a lot harder to demonstrate than expiry), and I might tackle one or two of them eventually. If and when copyrights expire, for example on more of Widtsoe’s work, that will open up a few more options. But I think we’re past the point where it makes sense for me to try and get tons of people to proofread tons of stuff, all of which I then post-process and put up on PG.

I am still interested in trying to get more people to read the books, and generally using MTP to further the work of the Church. To that end, I may put up some more posts focused on commentary, quotations, etc. I want to actually read some of the stuff that I have only been able to post-process! We’ll see how this goes, and I will be interested in feedback.

Eventually content production may drift to a halt–we shall see–but I do expect to keep the site up more or less indefinitely in its role as a passive index to what is on PG. We do seem to get some level of recurring traffic from search engines, which I assume is driven by that sort of thing.

As the book-mass-production phase closes, I offer my thanks to everyone who made it happen. Dozens of people have each donated many hours of their time to proofreading and other tasks, some anonymously. Research assistants Mariah Averett and Steven Fluckiger did outstanding work, supported by a few generous donors, under the supervision of Dr. Alonzo Gaskill at BYU. Ben Crowder founded MTP and inspired me to follow in his footsteps. My wife offered heroic support.

Thanks, everyone.

Update 11/20/20: Almost a year after posting the above, I haven’t posted any more, partly because I’ve shifted to writing on a personal blog. At this point I’m going to say MTP is on indefinite hiatus. If you have an interest in taking the reins from me, as I took over from Ben Crowder, please do get in touch–I would be happy to help someone get started.

In which: MTP has made a great deal of progress, but we’re starting to run out of obvious out-of-copyright books to work on, and I request opinions on our future plans.

Progress

In the last 4 years (give or take) many volunteers have done a great deal of work, and MTP has put up 94 e-books on Project Gutenberg, ranging from the 1830s to the 1920s, from pamphlets to multi-volume works, from pioneer stories to doctrine to fiction, and so on. In that same time frame, I’ve had two children, started full-time work with various related adventures, bought a house, and completed half of an online MBA program. So it’s been an exciting four years, and both my personal situation and MTP’s situation have developed quite a bit.

In 2014, I thought the list of LDS books on Project Gutenberg was embarrassing. The total volume of LDS literature was small, and many obviously significant out-of-copyright works were missing. At this point, there’s enough LDS lit posted that I am going to need many years to get caught up on reading it, and the holes in the canon are also much smaller. In the last year or so (since my last general update) the in-progress backlog has dropped from ~25 books to 12. We are still working on History of the Church vols. 4-6 (need post-processing), B. H. Roberts’ Seventy’s Course in Theology vols. 1-5 (in various stages of progress), and a few other projects that I think have value. There are also a few important post-1923 works that may not have had their copyrights renewed (e.g. Discourses of Brigham Young ed. Widtsoe), and once the post-processing backlog is done I may tackle the Project Gutenberg copyright research process to prove these are in the public domain.

Running out of books / towards “Mission Accomplished”?

But beyond these items (admittedly a hefty chunk of work) I’m struggling to come up with out-of-copyright books, not already on Project Gutenberg, that pass at least one of the following tests:

• Can reasonably be claimed as a Mormon “great book” (see that link for examples)
• Interests or intrigues me such that I’d consider reading it on my Kindle 
• Is widely read/could imaginably get substantial download counts during the next decade (e.g. written by famous general authority)

There’s always another book or work that fails all of the above tests but could still be deemed to have some “significance.” Think volume 21 of the Journal of Discourses, or George Reynolds’ Complete Concordance to the Book of Mormon: important at the time, possibly of interest to scholars, but not remotely worth the effort to proofread and format as an e-book. Or consider the case of early Mormon fiction: no doubt some of it is “significant,” I wish I really loved reading it, and I wish people downloaded it, but in practice we’ve already made a decent sampling of it available and it seems to be a tough sell. This sort of “significance” is not enough motivation for me to spend the time on a book, recruit volunteers to work on it, etc. I have opportunity costs.

So the tests above are more or less where I draw the line, and MTP is approaching that line: we are unlikely to release another 94 e-books under my management or have further mass proofreading via an internship program. If there’s someone lurking out there who has much bigger dreams for out-of-copyright Mormon lit (will all you Complete Concordance die-hards out there please stand up) and a spare couple hundred hours a year, I would be happy to hand off the reins, so get in touch. Otherwise there will likely be progress on the books I listed above for a few more years, leading eventually to a stopping point.

To emphasize: I think the work we’ve done and are still doing is worthwhile, there’s more to go, and I could still use a couple more volunteers at this point. I am just making the policy statement that I do not expect to personally continue MTP’s work forever on increasingly obscure books. 

In my mind MTP’s other purpose, beyond making free e-books available, is to write about and advertise them: to encourage ordinary mortal members of the Church, who do not have an academic interest, to read awesome old Mormon stuff. The e-book production process has largely crowded this out for the last few years, and it’s likely to be at least another year before that changes, but I can imagine spending more time on it in the long-run. I’m curious to what extent we have influenced people via this side of our mission. So,

Questions for the world:

What out-of-copyright (i.e. pre-1923) LDS “great books,” books that are widely read, books that should intrigue me but may have escaped my notice, etc. are not already on Project Gutenberg?

Has MTP helped you to find and/or influenced you to read books you would not otherwise have read? How? How should we?

Please comment; I’m very interested in responses.

During 2014, the Mormon Texts Project released 44 e-books on Project Gutenberg. That’s a lot of books. To give it some scale, on Jan. 1, 2014, there were only 21 LDS e-books on Project Gutenberg. This progress is all thanks to volunteers and donors, and I’d like to thank all those who have contributed.

Volunteers have put in hundreds of hours of work to make this year’s production possible. Most had no prior personal connection to the project or anyone involved, but found out about it online, volunteered to help, and proofread an entire book over the course of a few months. Our first-ever class of summer interns played a large role by putting in a combined total of over 750 hours. Faculty and staff at Brigham Young University and Utah State University facilitated this through their support for the internship program. Many thanks to all those who have contributed their time.

Donors have also played a key role in the year’s success. Post-production of formatting-intensive works (such as the History of the Church) requires a somewhat rare skill-set and could be a limit on the project. Donor support for hundreds of hours of work by Mariah Averett, our BYU research assistant has eased this limit  and substantially increased our production. Once again, various BYU personnel (especially Dr. Alonzo Gaskill, who sponsors the position) deserve our thanks for facilitating the research assistant position.

This year’s production has included works by B. H. Roberts, Orson Pratt, James E. Talmage, Joseph Smith, John Taylor, and Wilford Woodruff, as well as seven books in the “Faith-Promoting Series” and various lesser-known classics like Forty Years Among the Indians and Spencer’s Letters. The “Available Texts” page shows that the most painful availability holes in the canon of classic Church lit are rapidly being filled in.

All the same, there’s still a long way to go. In the coming year, focus areas will include the History of the Church, the rest of the “Faith-Promoting Series,” and the works of B. H. Roberts. We’re already working on a couple of non-member perspectives on the early Mormon experience, including a piece by Thomas L. Kane. Mission reports, works related to early Mormon women, tracts, and more philosophical material should also get some attention.

We plan to offer the internship program again this coming summer, and we’re always looking for volunteers or donors. If the same outpouring of support we’ve seen this year continues, next year we ought to see even higher production.

Once again, thanks to all who have done so much!

Starting this Fall, MTP will fund one or more BYU student researchers who will help us increase our output of books. MTP is staffed by volunteers, our work to date has been done entirely by volunteers, and we expect that the majority of our work will always be done by volunteers. However, we recognize that many people who would like to support our work (including some of us, frankly) have more discretionary money than discretionary time,  and we’ve heard of interest in making donations, hence this program.

The best BYU students are as capable as anyone of quickly producing high-quality e-books. They are also typically in need of financial assistance and relevant career experience. Through this fund, we will simultaneously help students avoid debt, give them resume-friendly proofreading experience (“I proofread and produced five e-books start to finish”), and increase our output of books in a cost-effective way. At standard research assistant wages and average productivity, this program will make an extra book available on Project Gutenberg for every $425 we receive in donations. In light of all this, we believe that funding student researchers at BYU to work on ebook production offers excellent value for everyone involved. Furthermore, by channeling donations through BYU, donors can take advantage of BYU’s tax-exempt status and of many employer matching gift programs.

In the interest of putting our money where our mouths are, the staff and volunteers of MTP will be donating on an ongoing basis and putting up several thousand dollars to kick-start this program. For more information, see our Donate tab.