In 1995, the MIT Press was publishing 200 new books per year and 40
journals, in science and technology, architecture, social theory,
economics, cognitive science, and computational science. The MIT Press
decided to put a number of books online for free, as "a long-term
commitment to the efficient and creative use of new technologies".
Sales of print books with a free online version increased. This
initiative was praised by other publishers. But they were reluctant to
launch similar experiences because of the cost of publishing online
thousands of pages, problems linked to copyright, and the fear of free
versions "competing" with print sales.
1995 > The Internet Dictionary Project: collaborative dictionaries on
the internet
After launching the Human-Languages Page (H-LP) in May 1994, Tyler
Chambers launched the Internet Dictionary Project (IDP) in 1995. The
IDP was a collaborative project to create free collaborative online
dictionaries from English to other languages (French, German, Italian,
Latin, Portuguese, and Spanish). As explained on the project's website
in September 1998: "The Internet Dictionary Project's goal is to create
royalty-free translating dictionaries through the help of the
internet's citizens. This site allows individuals from all over the
world to visit and assist in the translation of English words into
other languages. The resulting lists of English words and their
translated counterparts are then made available through this site to
anyone, with no restrictions on their use." Twelve years later, in
January 2007, Tyler ran out of time to manage this project, and removed
the ability to update the dictionaries, but people could still search
the available dictionaries or download the archived files.