aboutwittenberg

What is Project Wittenberg?

Project Wittenberg is an ad hoc group of individuals dedicated to posting on the internet of a cross-section of classic and historic texts written by Lutherans. The project arose from the frustration felt by these librarians, archivists, scholars, pastors and others. A thorough search of the ‘net yielded few works by even Martin Luther, founder of Lutheranism, translator of the Bible, shaper of the German language, and a catalyst in the events that shaped the formation of modern western civilization.

Project Wittenberg will begin with documents written by Luther himself. The documents will be selected for their importance to the development of western civilization, their interest to a wide audience and their value in bringing Luther to life for those who have not had the opportunity to meet him in the pages of history. These works will be posted both in Luther’s own native languages and in English translation.

Project Wittenberg will select texts that are in the public domain or whose translators are willing to yield rights to free distribution of their work on the internet. In all cases, full scholarly citation will be made for the pieces converted and released by the project. In some cases, excerpts from larger works will be included. Keeping in Touch With Project Wittenberg At this stage of the project’s development, no formal means of

communication is in place. There are several ways to track our progress in posting documents. The easiest method is to ask the moderator of the list from which you received this note to post all future ‘net releases. Another way is to gopher to the H-Net Gopher. From the University of Minnesota Gopher, select North America, United States, Illinois, University of Illinois — Chicago, The Researcher, History, and, finally, H-Net. When the gopher is fully functional this summer, the Project Wittenberg documents will appear here. At a later date, a list will be created for project members, moderators, sysops and institutional contacts. Once this is available, you may ask them to subscribe and keep you informed. In any case, please do not hesitate to contact Rev. Bob Smith at: CFWLIBRARY@CRF.CUIS.EDU. How to Volunteer For Project Wittenberg Project Wittenberg is very informal. Simply select an item you

wish to key in & contact Rev. Bob Smith at: CFWLIBRARY@CRF.CUIS.EDU. Please specify the language you wish to work with. Please keep the documents or selections relatively small. We will want to break the files into sections less than 30K in length. Please locate a public domain text before sending your offer to do a document. Include in your message the full citation of the item so that we may confirm its status.

Rev. Smith will verify that the selection isn’t already assigned, send you the format for the document and wait for the finished product. When you are ready, send your file in plain ascii format to Rev. Smith for proof reading & posting.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask.