Where did you get all these files?

Very simply, the internet. I started back in 1993 to get internet service. As a missionary (not like most missionaries it appears), living under a tight budget, we never had any extra money. Seldom do we have to put money into retirement, or go on vacations or anything like that. So as a preacher I was taught that we should be increasing our religious library, which is the bread and butter of preaching, every year. Because we were under a mission board situation, they set what my income should be, and it was just plain down ridiculous. My first year I spent my entire income (when everybody gave) on fixed expenses. They said I should live comfortably on $550 a month, my rent was $350, my car insurance was $50, their emergency fund was $35, language school was $100, tithe was $55, etc. As you can see, I already spent my income and I don't have gas money for the car, nor money for public transportation, nor money for food. To the point, I decided to live broke rather than return to the US and spend the majority of my ministry running around visiting churches.

So no money for books. I had at that the time of coming to Mexico probably some 300 books and another 500 in microfiche (AMG libraries). Most of the AMG library are older works from pastors' religious libraries in England. So I started looking for titles and authors of these books on the internet. One thing led to another, and I started organizing them by author last name.

As I went from short internet articles to full sized books, I also realized that these books are not so useful if you don't know what you have when you need it. So I came across an article on a filing system for religious books. I modified it for my own use, and amplified it. Later I found in my rumblings on the internet a way to link to a specific place in a file (you set a destination), and in the HTML calling page you use a pound sign (#) and the destination name. From there I decided to split up the contents of some of the best of these files on different pages or sections so that people can jump directly to that section without having to look so hard for things.

Going to my Original Sources - In the PDF file, if you look at the bottom of any page, you will see the URL of that page on the internet. By copying that URL into a web browser, you can go to my original source where I got the file in the first place.

COPYRIGHT CONSIDERATIONS - In most cases people who put anything on the internet is because they want to make it public. The fact that it is on the internet is a submission in kind to the public domain. For a large number of these older works of people long dead, the copyright has run out on their works, and their books and works are now in the public domain. The fact that I publish it or put it on the internet with my copyright notice does not copyright the work again, except in the case of the formatting. Reformat the file and it is back into your possession. In a few cases, the people involved who actually own the copyright get nasty and expressly prohibit the reproduction of their works by any other means. These works I usually don't republish on my website (usually means I don't ever do so unless I miss the warnings, which happens).

Many times the copyright is retained by the owner in a special way. They prohibit the reproduction or alteration of their works. This means that they are protecting themselves from people who misrepresent their works, changing it, attacking it. I never change the actual works published except when on occasion I am reading one and see an obviously misspelled word, like "wrod" for "word". Most men of God who are serious about the ministry freely give permission to reproduce their works as long as the copyright information is left in tact, and it is not changed. In some cases, the prohibition of no reproduction is included, but elsewhere on their site they give limited reproduction as long as it is not charged for, i.e. it has to be distributed totally free.

The above is a quote out of the US Copyright Law. In theory, the reproduction of works for teaching, scholarship or research (even in a non-educational setting, i.e. not in a school proper), makes the reproduction valid and not breaking the copyright law. I do not make any money off of the library, in fact, it costs me. Everything I offer, I offer free. I got the above off of a site similar to mine, although not nearly as large.

My understanding of the copyright code (which I have studied), is that to prove infringement, there has to be a loss of income on the part of the copyright owner. When somebody else sells their copies, the real owner loses possible income. In most of the cases of these works, they are simply not available in print, or if they are, they are out of copyright and into public domain, reprints like Kregel's reprints of great works. A few are still under the 76 years of copyright, but the authors have put them into public domain.

I also am aware that many preachers do not like electronic formats for study purposes. There is nothing like putting a paper book on your desk and reading it and making notes in the margins. I consider this library an aid in a way to the selling of these books in paper edition. I linked to two book selling places for this purpose, to facilitate people purchasing a paper copy and helping out whoever has the copyright. When a preacher browses through these books, if he likes them, he usually will buy a paper copy for his bookshelf.

Changes I make to other people's works - There are a great number of changes that I make to the files I download though. Most of the time the information is on HTML pages, and I have Adobe Acrobat which "prints" information into a pdf file. With Acrobat there is a limited amount of changes that you can do to a file. Almost 100% of the changes I do to files I download consist of putting in the proper Document Information in the PDF file (title and author), and placing bookmarks and destinations in the files. With this, people can better navigate the information, find what they want, or quickly see the contents and see if that is not what they are looking for. I do not consider this altering the original, but formatting it. When Acrobat downloads a HTML and makes a PDF, it uses the page's Title for the bookmark name. Unfortunately some works are simply without title (in which case Acrobat uses the URL for the title) or the title is poor, for example, "chapter seventeen - Title of the work, Work of the Holy Spirit in Acts". In this case I retype the title to read "17 HS in Acts". I do this because in Acrobat Reader, the bookmark panel is narrow, and in the first case, you barely get past the chapter seventeen, after I retype it, you can see enough of the title to understand what it is dealing with.

Submissions - At times people may come across a work they would like to see in my library. Send me the URL of the work or how I can get a hold of it, and I will see what I can do. At present I have 500 Megabytes of space for my library and other files, and I am limited, but as I increase it, I would be glad to consider all submissions.

My Purpose in the Library - My purpose of making the library the way it is, is to make it like a public library. Not everything you pull off the shelf of you public library is of the same value. Sometimes you pull a book and it is worthless for what you are looking for at the moment. Next month you grab the same book (looking for something else) and it is exactly what you need. At times you disagree with the position of the author, and at other times you are looking for defenses of a position you do not agree with, and that same book is of value.

I do not filter nor read every work before putting it in the library. I do not have the time. I generally can judge by knowing the position of a person (Calvinist, Armenianist) and the group and time he lived (Anglican, 300 years ago, or Foursquare Gospel or Church of God Anderson Indiana) to know where they are theologically. Even in some cult groups, there are some good that can be had. For example, the Roman Catholics believe in the Trinity, and they may have something that is worthy of review. The Jehovah's Witnesses might have something against dancing, and it might be worthy of review. In such cases, I usually put a code in the works title (Cath) for Catholic, or (COG) Church of God, or (Mormon), or something to alert me to this fact. Usually I try to get my information and works from people that are more mainstream. There are some Church of God, Church of Christ, and Pentecostals that have good sound information. In general I hold the Calvinist theologians as being more scholarly and see their works as being more valuable in general. This is even though I am not a Calvinist.

My purpose is to make a place where you can come and check out a book, download it to your computer or read it online, and you don't have to worry about returning it in a week. There are a tremendously valuable set of resources available on the internet and my purpose is to concentrate them in my library so that you can find them quickly, use them, and not have to mess with internet searches once you find my site.

Extras in my site - One of the advantages of having such a library, and organizing it is the ability to put into the mix of things extras. One of the extras I am slowly including is author biographical data. Another is chapter content of the book outside of the pdf format, split up in different areas where people may not normally consider looking. For example, Doctrine of the Holy Spirit, Pneumatology. Most Systematic Theology books will have chapters on this, but if you don't think about looking there, you will miss it. So I take the approach of going through an online book and splitting it up chapter by chapter into logical places where it would go. As time goes on, I will also place some of my own writings, especially to refute some common positions, which I consider to be a cut above the normal. These I work over heavily to make sure it is logical and uses Scripture to refute some position or doctrine.