About us

Open Shelf is a curated library of public-domain books. The texts are digitized editions produced by Project Gutenberg volunteers; what we add is the editorial layer a modern reader expects: an introduction for each book, verified publication facts, an honest statement of its rights status, a reading-time estimate, genre and theme navigation, curated reading lists, guides on how to approach older literature, and a clean online reader that keeps your place.

Who runs the site

Operator: Nicky Klendar. Contact: info@webyenilik.com.

Open Shelf is an independent project. It is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by Project Gutenberg, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, or any publisher.

What is in the library today

50 books currently have full editorial pages. A further 250 titles are in our catalog queue: they have been imported from the official Project Gutenberg catalog and checked automatically, but no editor has written about them yet, so they are shown as plain catalog records that link to the source. We would rather publish fewer pages that are worth reading than hundreds of identical templates.

How we work

• How we select books explains the import, rights check and review pipeline.
• Editorial policy sets out what we will and will not write, how we use sources, and how we use AI drafting tools.
• Copyright & public domain policy explains why the books are free and what differs by country.

Funding

The site is free to use and requires no account. We may show advertising on editorial pages in future to cover hosting and editorial costs; ads are never shown inside the reader, on download links, or on catalog and utility pages. See the privacy policy for what that involves.