Michael Hart, the founder of Project Gutenberg, has died at his home in Urbana, Illinois at the age of 64. The project he started back in 1971 lives on, however, producing quality public domain texts now readable on devices that could only have been imagined when Project Gutenberg began.

On July 4, 1971, Hart tried out a new idea of his: typing the text of the Declaration of Independence on a computer at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He made the text available to other computer users, and then to other network users, and he soon began entering more texts. As the project grew in usefulness, volunteers from around the world pitched in to research, scan, type, and proofread everything from Montaigne's complete essays to the P.G. Wodehouse comic masterpiece My Man Jeeves. (This being the Internet, the most popular title right now is the Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana.)

The project has produced more than 36,000 books, initially in "plain vanilla" text format but increasingly in HTML, MOBI, and EPUB. Its "magic catalog" brings search-and-click download functionality to devices like the Kindle, which makes reading these older texts a terrific experience again. No more horrible used editions with their cramped type and moldy pages, or old editions with little white space and ancient-looking fonts; instead, e-readers give the old texts space to breathe on the page, where the words of Thomas de Quincey look just like the words of J.K Rowling.

The project faced many difficulties over the years, such as the 2004 request from Ayn Rand's agents to stop distributing her work Anthem. Such requests were common: since public domain laws differ, what is free to copy in the US may not be free in other countries. That was the case here, but Project Gutenberg politely declined to remove legitimate public domain material from its US servers.

Hart handled such matters firmly but without vitriol. To Rand's agent, he wrote:

We have had the heads of several major law libraries do research on this particular matter for us [of international jurisdiction], and are confident we are in an exemplary position as per our research on this. Of course, if you should come across any new case law or rulings that might effect some change, we would be only too happy for an opportunity to do even more research concerning such cases. As of our research there is no case law to support your claim: "making it [ANTHEM] available on the World Wide Web is in violation of that copyright." Nevertheless, we remain at your disposal to assist in any effort [you] may make to protect such copyrights as do exist in ANTHEM.

Dr. Gregory Newby, who has served as CEO of the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, wrote a short obituary for Hart. "Michael prided himself on being unreasonable, and only in the later years of life did he mellow sufficiently to occasionally refrain from debate," wrote Newby. "Yet, his passion for life, and all the things in it, never abated. Frugal to a fault, Michael glided through life with many possessions and friends, but very few expenses. He used home remedies rather than seeing doctors. He fixed his own house and car. He built many computers, stereos, and other gear, often from discarded components."

He won't be building any more stereos from discarded parts, but Hart's own work—and the passion he showed for books and learning—live on after his death. His funeral takes place in Champaign, IL on Monday, September 12, 2011. Those who want to make a donation can contribute funds to Project Gutenberg.