Project Gutenberg of the Philippines (PGPH) aims to make as many books available to as many people as possible, with a special focus on the Philippines and Philippine languages. Although PGPH works closely with the original Project Gutenberg in the United States (PGUS), it is a fully independent project.
We believe having books available for free downloads is of paramount importance for the preservation and accessibility of knowledge and cultural heritage in the Philippines. Two highly destructive wars, the tropical climate, and limited resources for preservation have made many old Philippine books very difficult to obtain. The few copies that have survived are often locked away in closed libraries or are in foreign libraries out-of-reach for most Filipinos. Printed on cheap paper many books are now too brittle to be handled, except with the utmost care. PGPH can liberate such works from their obscurity, by digitizing them and re-publishing them online.
Currently, PGPH is still in its infancy. However, the original Project Gutenberg already contains a large number of works related to the Philippines, including works in Tagalog and other Philippine languages. Some, but not all, were prepared by the same people who are also involved in PGPH.
PGPH will respect Philippine copyright law. Works published by PGPH are in the public domain in the Philippines, or published with permission from the copyright holder. A work is in the public domain in the Philippines if all contributing authors, illustrators, etcetera, have deceased more than fifty years ago. This is not always true for works published by the original Project Gutenberg, which follows United States copyright law. When works are public domain in both the Philippines and the United States, we will contribute them to the PGUS collection, as well as our own local collection.
Project Gutenberg of the Philippines is entirely volunteer driven. You can help in a number of ways. The best is, you need neither give much time or money to be of help. You can start straight away on Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders, and help correcting books for addition on this site. There will always be a few books on the Philippines available to work on. If you have access to old books, you can scan these, or allow PGPH volunteers to scan them, so we can add the book to our collection. No need to give up your copy but for the time needed to scan it. You can also help us by carefully reading any books already published, and reporting to us all errors and omissions you notice.
