[IAEP] Project Gutenberg, etc.

[Edward Cherlin]

On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 7:46 AM, James Simmons <jim.simmons at walgreens.com> wrote:
> Edward,
>
> I'm a little puzzled by this statement:
>
> "Presumably we can create a library of pretagged documents for our
> students."
>
> I would guess you're referring to some variation of the Unified Bundles
> idea, and these bundles would have tags in them.  Fine with me, but who is
> creating this library?  Is it Sugar Labs?  Do individual schools have local
> etext libraries?

You appear to be answering your own question below--teachers and
students for sure. I would only add that the children will know better
than anyone else what works for them, so the system should gather
their inputs.

> There are already several good repositories of free etexts
> available, covering many languages.  Would we create yet another one?

Start with the tags that those repositories provide: author, date,
language, subject matter, or anything else.

I interviewed once at a company that provided software technology for
data warehousing that did not require conversion of existing databases
to the same format. We can use that idea to give the appearance of a
unified library catalog for any number of source repositories. (I
didn't get the contract, because they were in the process of being
bought by a larger company, and froze all hiring.)

> The way I would do it would be similar to the way my public library did it.
> Your first card only lets you check out books from the kid's section.  This
> would be like a school's local etext library, where the teachers select and
> bundle texts they consider suitable for the younger readers.

And add any tags or other metadata appropriate for their use. Books
can be tagged by subject matter or relevance to a course. Students can
rate and tag documents, and the system can aggregate the results, as
for instance Amazon does.

> (Maybe the
> older students help with the bundling).

+1

> In Junior High they put a special
> stamp on your kid's card that let you into the adult section, but you were
> only allowed to check out books from certain sections.  Then in High School
> you got a grown up card, which was good for everything except the books in a
> locked case.

I grew up in much more open systems. Newark NJ, I later found out, had
the largest open stack library in the world. Then in college I also
had stack privileges starting in my freshman year. I had to register
at the Rare Book Library, and didn't get to wander the stacks there,
but could request anything in the catalog at any time, except items
requiring special handling and environment. Those required an
application stating the research purpose and so on. I read original
16th century documents related to a Shakespeare play we were studying.
They had an original Gutenberg Bible and an Audubon Elephant Folio on
public display.

> This second and third tier I would consider to be Project
> Gutenberg, Internet Archive, etc. where the kid is hunting for his own books
> and has to either bundle them himself or use Activities that don't require
> bundling.

See also Goodreads.com, where people can enter their favorites and
what they are currently reading, with ratings, tags, and reviews.

> James Simmons
>
>
> Edward Cherlin wrote:
>>
>> It only took me a few minutes on Ubuntu, but then I had almost all of
>> the Python dependencies previously installed to support other
>> packages. For me the time consuming part was tagging more than a
>> thousand files. But it's worth it, because now I don't have to
>> remember where in the filesystem I put something. Presumably we can
>> create a library of pretagged documents for our students.

-- 
Silent Thunder (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) is my name
And Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, The Truth my destination.
http://earthtreasury.org/worknet (Edward Mokurai Cherlin)