Library Release Notes, 2007

These are early days for the OLPC library exchange (in development); there is still a great deal of content that can be tried out on your XO out of the box, and a growing set of formats you can quickly create and remix.

Other release notes: Demo Notes (on how and what to demo), Hardware Release Notes (B1, B2), and Software Release Notes -- these are all useful for understanding the system and what is available. There are also general instructions on how to use the Sugar interface.

The software and interfaces for creation are still in alpha test stages, and we are just forming links to archives and repositories with their own metadata and format needs. Please refer to the OLPC Human Interface guidelines and Content guidelines for a vision of how we would like to see the content and interfaces on the laptops to develop, and what we want interfaces into existing platforms and collections to look like for XO users.

Efforts to date have focused on being able to read, write, and share materials in basic formats, and interfaces for children to editing and browsing these materials. Components still under development include a mesh view of who is working on what at any given moment, a reader/writer interface to editable material, and a distributed content store. While some of the early library is dedicated to static sample materials, to use in testing and as suggestions of what might be created, our goal is to help children and teachers create; and the best materials for the early library are those that expose their construction, or can be useful pieces in later work.

If you test out the library in a particular setting, please let us know.

Overview

Some great materials that are under development are not yet on the laptop images; we were limited in the latest build to half of the 150MB there will eventually be for such material. Early estimates of the space breakdown by type, balancing reuse potential and natural size of different formats: 10M for bootstrapping, how-tos, projects & manuals; 10M for libraries of sample code, color, sound, shapes; 20M for games and activities; 40M for pocket reference works and images; 40M for music, audiobooks, and video; and 40M for sample texts, including language, math, and science materials.

• crossmark ebookreader - currently runs and renders on a school library, where the collection of crossmark books will reside
• UNICEF's hygiene and water sanitation application - currently wiki-based and will be hosted on a UNICEF server. A light XO wiki-client is still to come; this may at first be separate from the journal, but will eventually be integrated.
• LearnThings.za lessons: 90 lessons for the target audience; these will be viewable from the school library.
• A constellation of Etoys

Upcoming materials

The sample library on the XO is only an example of the materials people are developing for our open library exchange. Also upcoming:

• More picture books from the ICDL -- the latest ones hare separated text from the images, for searching and localization
• Updated, larger multilingual collections from the World Digital Library
• UNICEF's village storytelling activity, mentoring and education apps, all online collaborative projects with a limited on-xo activity component
• Children's videos -- both created on-XO and converted from archives

Formats

The library and Sugar currently supports the following formats. Note that other formats can be supported on the current build outside of Sugar, but those are not considered here.

Text

• .txt, .doc, .abw : these formats can be read by abiword, and will launch it from the browser. Abiword will write .abw files
• .pdf : this can be ready by xbook, which launches automatically from the browser when following a pdf.

Multimedia document with layout

• .html : parsed by the browser. source will soon be viewable
• .pdf : read by xbook

Formatted text

• .xml, .rss : read by the browser, by penguinTV (as feeds)

Images

• .jpeg, .gif, .png - these can be viewed by many applications, including the browser
• .svg - 99% supported.

Music

• csound : this will be playable by TamTam... currently its XO build doesn't provide a way to save or load sound files, however.
• .ogg : see other common audio formats below; can be played by Helix or Gstreamer, not part of the current build.
  • .mp3, .wav : these can be played by Helix or Gstreamer, standalone or as a browser plugin, when they are installed
  • .rm, .ra : this can be played by the Helix plugin when installed with a RealAudio codec.

  Currently, audio files selected in the browser try to launch a player if it is present.

Video

• .ogg : can be played by Helix or Gstreamer, standalone or as a plugin. Not part of the current build.
• .mpeg, .mov, .wmv, .rm : see above

Python

• The Develop activity will provide one way to view python files; the 'view source key' another

Javascript

• This will viewable the same way page source can be viewed through the browser.

Etoys projects

• .pr files automatically launch etoys from the browser.

Sample Library

The current build ships with a small set of activities (paint, blockparty, slideshow, abiword, a newsreader, etoys, a browser, xbook, a calculator, tamtam, a camera app) and materials that ship with the laptop.

The sample library is currently divided into sections that are intended to be filled up with material created and downloaded by children and teachers in each country. Its materials currently include books, images, music and sound, javascript activities, and hooks into collaborative projects and open content projects online. The journal, when complete, will provide a similar interface and replace this browser view of the local library; a similar browser-based view will continue to be available to people without XOs looking at collections of materials for the project. The current sample library is mainly in English and Spanish, with Arabic and Portuguese materials; other materials in the latter languages, as well as in Urdu and French, will be available soon.

books & reference

Including picture books, reference materials such as a picture dictionary or children's encyclopedia, stories and language learning materials. Works here are drawn from the International Children's Digital Library, Wikipedia, BookBox, and the Logos dictionary and children's library.

math & science

Including math games, biology overviews, a periodic table, astronomical charts, or other similar matter. Work draw from Frans Lanting and the E.O. Wilson Foundation.

images & maps

Including maps of the world, images of animals, the planet, and the skies, and photographs from museums and cultural collections. With works from the World Digital Library consortium.

music & video

Including sound and music files, audiobook recordings, animations, video taken with the XO camera, simulations, laptop screencasts, and movie or television clips.

activities

Including the software activities on the XO, intros to using the XO, projects to work on for children or their families, and games of all sorts -- constructive, solo or networked. Includes eToys and Javascript games, and how-tos from WikiHow. should include links to Block Party as well, once that is enabled.

web links

With a list of search engines (starting with Google) and a select group of links (waiting for another refining pass before adding to the build).

uniwiki

A set of projects sponsored by UNICEF, in search of a better name... 'uniwiki' is only temporary. The projects include a water & environment project to share information about improving water quality and the enviornment in one's town, a village-storytelling activity that involves taking photographs and video recordings of oneself and one's family, an HIV/AIDS outreach project, a mentoring project that pairs mentors with children from their homeland, and a self-directed education project especially for children in post-conflict regions.

These are being developed in Spanish and in English.

sesame workshop

A collection of videos from Plaza Sesamo, Alaa Simsim, Takalani Sesame, and other sesame series, each scheduled for use in demonstrations in April.

School library

There will be school and regional libraries that feed the individual XO libraries, and that eventually provide a way to pull down and push up modules as a child finds new interesting things or loses interest in older ones. We are developing a better idea of what the school libraries will include in each country, based on discussion with local teachers and groups. Among other things, these libraries will have larger collections of PDF and HTML and spoken books, global and stellar maps, television and other videos, cartoons, music collections, and images; as well as multilingual Wikipedia and dictionary snapshots.

Suggestions for school library contents and priorities are always welcome; for instance on the library page.

Maps

Maps from NASA's world satellite map collection (O(1TB) in all), the Rumsey collection (15,000 historical maps), and of space, thanks to Hubble and other massive telescopes, are all available. Suitable subsets can be cached on each school server. Eventually a tiered map distribution system will need to be set up to allow for map queries to pull down details around a region of interest, and push up geo-annotated data.

Video

Media collections from science and documentary archives, and from children's television programs such as Plaza Sesamo, belong on school and regional servers. In general, full-length films and longer television episodes will be streamed to an XO from a school library or other server.

Books

Collections of books matched with a specific reader -- pdfs with the xbook activity, crossmark books with the ejohn ebookreader -- will be distributed across a school. Larger collections will be stored on the school library; on of the small servers can hold 10,000 books.