And, don't forget licensing - many free-for-download e-books don't indicate how they may be used, hindering translation or storage in a repository for example.
A useful resource concerning e-books is teleread.org: http://www.teleread.org/2009/12/07/sugar-on-a-stick-what-it-means-for-e-books-and-education/ Sean On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 5:05 PM, James Simmons <[email protected]> wrote: > Marina, > > I am finishing up a book "Make Your Own Sugar Activities!" on FLOSS Manuals > (http://flossmanuals.net) and I was thinking about perhaps starting a new > one on the subject you mention. When I first mentioned the idea of "Make > Your Own Sugar Activities!" a lot of people thought it was a good idea, but > when I mention the idea of a book on getting the most out of Sugar as a > Reading platform not so much. But your email convinces me it would be a > good idea. > > Sugar is already a decent reading platform with tools to search through > over a million free e-books, which is terrific if you speak English, not so > good for others. Books in other languages exist on Internet Archive and > Project Gutenberg, but there aren't nearly as many. Books with pictures for > small children are scarce in any language. For this reason any book on > Sugar as a reading platform needs content on creating e-books as well as > reading them. > > My thought is such a FLOSS Manual would need chapters on the following: > > 1). Book formats supported, advantages and disadvantages. > > a). PDF > b). DJVU > c). Plain Text > d). EPub > e). CBZ (Comic books) > > 2). Sources of free e-books > > a). PG > b). IA > c). etc. > > 4). Sugar Activities For Reading > > a). Get Books > b). Get Internet Archive Books > c). Read > d). Read Etexts > e). View Slides > f). Info Slicer > > 5). Making Your Own E-books > > a). Making PDF's and Plain Text with Open Office > b). Making PDF's, CBZ's and DJVU's out of scanned book page images > c). etc. > > I see this as a manual which could be translated into many languages rather > than a set of Wiki entries. FLOSS Manuals is actually much like a Wiki, but > more structured. When you're done with it you have a website, a PDF, and > possibly a bound and printed book. > > One thing I read in your blog posts was you had difficulty downloading > PDF's because they are zipped up. My own Activity Read Etexts will read > plain text files stored in Zip files. It would not be difficult to modify > Read to handle PDF's in Zip files. Perhaps Sayamindu Dasgupta could be > persuaded to do this. Another alternative is to download the Zips to the > Journal, use the Journal Activity to copy them to a thumb drive, then use > the Terminal Activity to unzip them from the command line. You would then > copy the PDFs back to the Journal using the Journal Activity. > > James Simmons > > > > On Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 8:10 PM, Marina <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Warm greetings from Vietnam, >> >> After three months of working on XOs in Saigon, I found out that it is >> not easy to find and download ebooks in local language. If there are free >> books available online, they are not easy to find, and then the books are >> not easy to open (there are many different formats). Feel all my pain here: >> >> http://saigonolpc.wordpress.com/2010/03/14/class-thirteen-scratch-and-more/ >> >> http://saigonolpc.wordpress.com/2010/03/24/class-seventeen-glass-is-half-full/ >> >> One good website for free Viet books is >> http://ebook.vietnamwebsite.net/index.php >> >> Adam and all, >> why don't we find several subject matter experts to present the following: >> >> - variety of ebook formats, >> - what software to use to open the files, >> - how to find books quickly in different languages >> - latest news about epub >> - all other possible helpful info related to ebooks... >> >> It will be helpful to all local and international teams. I think there is >> a lot of potential in digital literature as 1000 paper books can not travel >> where 1000 digital books can :) >> >> Thank you, >> Marina. >> PS we will see more of this >> http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Harnessed-Wind-Electricity/dp/0061730327 >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> support-gang mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/support-gang >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) > [email protected] > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep >
_______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) [email protected] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
