Volunteers can also work independently, after contacting Project Gutenberg directly, by keying in a book they particularly like using any text editor or word processor. They can also scan it and convert it into text using OCR software, and then make corrections by comparing it with the original. In each case, someone else will proofread it. They can use ASCII and any other format. Everybody is welcome, whatever the method and whatever the format.
New volunteers are most welcome too at Distributed Proofreaders (DP-INT) and Distributed Proofreaders Europe (DP Europe). Any volunteer anywhere is welcome, for any language. There is a lot to do. As stated on both websites, "Remember that there is no commitment expected on this site. Proofread as often or as seldom as you like, and as many or as few pages as you like. We encourage people to do 'a page a day', but it's entirely up to you! We hope you will join us in our mission of 'preserving the literary history of the world in a freely available form for everyone to use'."
Initially, the eBooks were mostly in English. As Project Gutenberg is based in the United States, it first focused on the English-speaking community in the country and worldwide.
In October 1997, Michael Hart expressed his intention to expand the publishing of eBooks in other languages. At the beginning of 1998, the catalog had a few titles in French (10 titles), German, Italian, Spanish and Latin. In July 1999, Michael wrote: "I am publishing in one new language per month right now, and will continue as long as possible."
In early 2004, there were works in 25 languages. In July 2005, there were works in 42 languages, including Iroquoian, Sanskrit and the Mayan languages. The seven "main" languages were: English (with 14,548 books on July 27, 2005), French (577 books), German (349 books), Finnish (218 books), Dutch (130 books), Spanish (103 books) and Chinese (69 books).
Let us take French as an example. On February 13, 2004, there were 181 eBooks in French (out of a total of 11,340 eBooks). On May 16, 2005, there were 547 eBooks in French (out of 15,505 Books). The number tripled in 15 months. This number should rise significantly during the next few years, notably with Project Gutenberg Europe (launched in June 2005).