Two non-profit organisations are preparing to provide free access to 300,000 texts online this summer.

Project Gutenberg and World eBook Library plan to make “a third of a million” ebooks available free for a month at the first World eBook Fair.

Downloads will be available at the fair’s website from July 4, the 35th anniversary of Project Gutenberg’s founding, through to August 4.

The majority of the books will be contributed by the World eBook Library.

It otherwise charges US$8.95 (euro6.98) a year for access to its database of more than 250,000 ebooks, documents and articles.

But the book fair will not be the last chance for ebookworms to devour works ranging from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to Old Indian Legends, not to mention dictionaries and thesauruses, without paying for them.

Project Gutenberg founder Michael Hart, who first announced the ambitious plan a month ago, said Friday the partners are on track to make one million books available for the annual fair’s one-month run in 2009, with more appearing in subsequent years.

About 100,000, he said, will be permanently available at the handful of Project Gutenberg sites on the internet.