Caroline, I have been thinking a bit along the lines you mention. Several people seemed to have the idea that my Read Etexts program should not just read Gutenberg etexts, but should enable you to go find and download said texts easily. I had resisted that idea, but now I'm beginning to see some merit in it. What would make it possible is that PG produces a text file which is a catalog of all of their books. You can get it here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL My own program, if I ever get around to writing it, would download this file on request, create an array of objects that cross referenced titles to book numbers, sort it, and pickle it. The pickled file would be used as input to a search dialog or perhaps a search panel that would let you type in words like "Verne" or "Aviation" and would list out titles that had those words in it. The user would select the title he wished to download and the program would download it and create a Journal entry for it. This Journal entry would have the Read Etexts icon and would resume with Read Etexts. I have a pretty good idea how to add this functionality to Read Etexts but no idea when I'll find the time to do it. However, it occurs to me that this text file, converted to a PDF (use courier font), would be a pretty good demonstration of the number and variety of books available for free in just one repository. You could make a Journal entry out of it or link to it from the Start page of Browse (in which case no conversion would be necessary). The file is human readable. James Simmons Message: 2 > Date: Tue, 12 May 2009 13:37:40 -0400 > From: Caroline Meeks <[email protected]> > Subject: [IAEP] The eBook "ah ha" moment for Sugar on a Stick > To: iaep <[email protected]> > Message-ID: > <[email protected]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > For the next SoaS Beta I'd like to help users trying out Sugar, especially > educators, have an "ah ha" moment about how Sugar on a Stick can open a huge > world of books for their students. > > The US elementary schools I visit have a computer lab and they have books. > But they certainly don't have the budget to get as many copies of as many > different books as they would like. > > Maybe our new users will know that there are free books on the internet. > Good chance they have never actually tried it themselves. Plus, having a > book on the internet doesn't help their students if they get one hour of > computer time in the lab. > > But having a book on your Sugar Stick and being able to read it in multiple > locations is actually very useful! > > This is one of the many things I want educators to discover as they play > with their Sugar Sticks. > > I know we have wonderful library apps coming down the pike. What I'm > interested in right now is what is the art of the possible for the next Beta > in June? > > Suggestions so far: > > - Include the FLOSS Sugar manual in the SoaS Image > - Add a link to one or more free book sites in the startup page on Browse > - Include a kids book in the SoaS Image. > > Other ideas? > > Thanks, > Caroline > _______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) [email protected] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
