Ebook collections: Difference between revisions
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While OLPC is not publishing official collections of books or other materials, it would be a good idea for libraries, archives, and other repositories to be able to identify and broadcast selections from their collections that are suitable for use on the OLPC and by children around the world. This will help students, teachers and others find [[Ebooks]] they can enjoy. |
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The <b>OLPC eBook Collection</b> holds a definitive compilation of more than 1,000 of the world's finest children's literary works. This collection is provided by <b>[[World Public Library]]</b> as a free public service and each of the eBooks are completely unabridged specifically designed to bring children a truly enjoyable reading experience with full-page color illustrations of the original works. |
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===Criteria for Inclusion=== |
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<b>No FEE REQUIRED</b> to access the OLPC Collection, http://SchoolLibrary.com/OLPC_Collection.htm |
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All eBooks are not automatically suitable for the OLPC collection. In order to be in the collection, books must meet '''ALL''' of the following criteria: |
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* No fee required to download a copy of the eBook and no limits on making additional copies or derivatives to distribute as desired. |
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However, these books are <b>not freely available</b>. Even the books that are wholly in the public domain have been "re-copyrighted" by the "World Public Library" (or so they claim), and issued with a license that prevents their further redistribution. OLPC should not be using these poorly-licensed editions. Without a special contract with the World Public Library, OLPC would not be able to put these books on the XO laptops, or on the school servers; nor would the children be able to email or otherwise share these books with anyone else. As the books themselves say, "Prohibited distribution includes any service that offers this file for download or commercial distribution in any form." |
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* The book's content is suitable for school-age children. Many eBooks are written for adults so they will not meet this criteria unless there are educational support materials readily available. For instance William Shakespeare's plays or the Koran are written for adults, however there is a lot of material available to support the use of these books in education. |
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* The eBook is availble in one of the 3 supported eBook formats, namely [[PDF|Acrobat]], HTML or XML. It is not sufficient for converters to exist. In order to be in the collection, the eBook must already be converted to one of the 4 formats. Note that [[OpenDocument]] is in XML and is therefore suitable. |
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*: We are working to add [[DJVU|DejaVU]] support to [[Read]], the default document reader. In the meantime, please make PDFs available as well. |
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===Mechanics of the Collection=== |
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There are better sources for most of these books, which offer the children true <b>freedom</b> rather than just a low price. For example, compare the |
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The bulk of the eBooks in the collection will not be available on an OLPC website. Instead, the OLPC Collection consists of a set of links to books that are stored elsewhere. In some cases, this may be to an original repository, such as a Project Gutenberg mirror. In other cases it will be to a website set up to support OLPC. |
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http://schoollibrary.com/eBooks/OLPC_Collection/Beauty_Beast_and_Other_Stories.pdf |
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with the Internet Archive's public domain scan of a similar retelling of the story: |
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http://www.archive.org/details/beautythebeast00cinciala |
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==Volunteers Needed== |
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==Links to this Content Provider== |
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Obviously, there is a lot of work needed even just sorting through the vast number of books in English. But we also need books in many other languages, particularly Portuguese and Arabic at present. Note that some books may be suitable for use in other countries even though the book is in English, for instance some of the Audubon bird books found here in [[DJVU]] format: http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/ |
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: NB: Evince has DJVU support, but it is not compiled into the latest versions of xbook, which is the package [[Read]] uses. |
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== Other Ebook resources == |
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The [[OLPC eBook Collection]] is produced by joint cooperation of Project Gutenberg Consortia Center and The World Public Library. |
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* http://Gutenberg.us |
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* http://WorldPublicLibrary.com |
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* http://SchoolLibrary.com/OLPC_Collection.htm |
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==Links to other Content Providers== |
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* http://www.gutenberg.org |
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[[Category:Resources]] |
[[Category:Resources]] |
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Latest revision as of 20:29, 17 November 2007
While OLPC is not publishing official collections of books or other materials, it would be a good idea for libraries, archives, and other repositories to be able to identify and broadcast selections from their collections that are suitable for use on the OLPC and by children around the world. This will help students, teachers and others find Ebooks they can enjoy.
Criteria for Inclusion
All eBooks are not automatically suitable for the OLPC collection. In order to be in the collection, books must meet ALL of the following criteria:
- No fee required to download a copy of the eBook and no limits on making additional copies or derivatives to distribute as desired.
- The book's content is suitable for school-age children. Many eBooks are written for adults so they will not meet this criteria unless there are educational support materials readily available. For instance William Shakespeare's plays or the Koran are written for adults, however there is a lot of material available to support the use of these books in education.
- The eBook is availble in one of the 3 supported eBook formats, namely Acrobat, HTML or XML. It is not sufficient for converters to exist. In order to be in the collection, the eBook must already be converted to one of the 4 formats. Note that OpenDocument is in XML and is therefore suitable.
Mechanics of the Collection
The bulk of the eBooks in the collection will not be available on an OLPC website. Instead, the OLPC Collection consists of a set of links to books that are stored elsewhere. In some cases, this may be to an original repository, such as a Project Gutenberg mirror. In other cases it will be to a website set up to support OLPC.
Volunteers Needed
Obviously, there is a lot of work needed even just sorting through the vast number of books in English. But we also need books in many other languages, particularly Portuguese and Arabic at present. Note that some books may be suitable for use in other countries even though the book is in English, for instance some of the Audubon bird books found here in DJVU format: http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/
- NB: Evince has DJVU support, but it is not compiled into the latest versions of xbook, which is the package Read uses.