[IAEP] [support-gang] ebooks

[Sean DALY]

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 <nicestep at gmail.com> 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 <verhovzeva at yahoo.com> 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
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>
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