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Hi, Sora<br>
<br>
Yes. The 'library' portion of the schoolserver uses a Django app to
create a database of 'accessions', items in the library. These are
organized into collections and then further into topics. As an
example, <br>
a course is in the db as a topic, a unit in the course is a
collection, and a lesson is an accession (a zipped folder).<br>
<br>
An accession can be any file (hence the zip). I hope to expand this
system so that books in the OLE Nepal Pustakalaya, Gutenberg books,
and books in Rachel can be added as accessions (instead of a file
name, the db record would point to a url).<br>
<br>
The idea would be that a comments on a book (accession) would be
linked from the accession record.<br>
There is also a Django app (kls), which provides a record for each
XO user (student or staff) and a record for each XO (inventory). The
comments made by a user would be linked also to the user. In this
way it would be easy to look at all comments and rankings by a user
or to look at all comments and rankings for a given item in the
library.<br>
<br>
The library contains Sugar activities, audio recordings, video
recordings, images and lessons, as well as ebooks so ther more
generic term accession appears useful.<br>
<br>
Like most of my projects, this one is 90% complete. The comment link
is needed. I plan the comments/rankings to look like those in
Pustakalaya (<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.pustakalaya.org">www.pustakalaya.org</a>). Unfortunately, that app currently
only works in the internet version. I also have not added the 'url'
links capability to add other items. Look at Rachel as an example of
how the Gutenberg collection could be organized into collections for
greater accessibility (by the way, this sort of direct link is far
less demanding on the server than the current search method).<br>
<br>
Yours,<br>
<br>
Tony <br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 02/22/2015 09:42 AM, James Simmons
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAN6VRWxQJ0tAmkq2kxSE7cK7CMmnN_dmxxvdrEeb4U0S5NxiiQ@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>Sora,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
The goodreads website <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.goodreads.com">https://www.goodreads.com</a>
might be useful. You can do rankings of books, reviews, have
threaded discussions, post favorite quotes, interact with G+ and
Facebook, and other things that the words "reading socially"
would suggest.
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I wrote a free book the might be of some use to you:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://archive.org/details/EBookEnlightenment">https://archive.org/details/EBookEnlightenment</a><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>It is also available on the web. Here is the chapter on the
Pathagar book server, which might be of interest:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.flossmanuals.net/e-book-enlightenment/the-pathagar-book-server/">http://en.flossmanuals.net/e-book-enlightenment/the-pathagar-book-server/</a><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>James Simmons</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Feb 21, 2015 at 4:45 PM, Sora
Edwards-Thro <span dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:sora@unleashkids.org" target="_blank">sora@unleashkids.org</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">Thanks for the additional input, everyone.
James, Gonzalo, Tony, some responses below:
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote"><span class="">On Sat, Feb 21,
2015 at 4:14 PM, James Simmons <span dir="ltr"><<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:nicestep@gmail.com" target="_blank">nicestep@gmail.com</a>></span>
wrote:
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px
0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>The catch is it only works with plain text
files. </div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
</span>
<div>Yes, my original thought was we could convert PDF
to plain-text files and just use the Write activity
to do highlights and such. But, some of the content
we're working with is not OER (that's what happens
when you need high-quality books in a specific
language), and I'm not sure if they'll be okay with
us manipulating the files like that. We've got to
choose how many battles to fight with them. Thanks
for passing this tool on - looks like it's better
suited than the Write activity for reading. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px
0px
0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<div>
<div class="gmail_extra">
<div class="gmail_quote"><span class="">On
Sat, Feb 21, 2015 at 2:51 PM, Gonzalo
Odiard <span dir="ltr"><<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:godiard@sugarlabs.org"
target="_blank">godiard@sugarlabs.org</a>></span>
wrote:</span><span class="">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>I am available to work (on
contract) in these features if you
are interested.</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Thank you for the offer, Gonzalo. Fortunately, we
do have some money raised to pay programmers. Right
now I'm just trying to identify which tasks to ask
people to tackle. Bear in mind that this is my first
experience with software development; thanks for
being patient,everyone, as we try to figure out what
is and isn't doable, and what is and isn't worth
doing. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>On Fri, Feb 20, 2015 at 7:52 PM, Tony Anderson <span
dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:tony_anderson@usa.net"
target="_blank">tony_anderson@usa.net</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px
0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">Also
on the list is a 'comments' capability so that
learners can make comments and give rankings for
the books they read from the school server library
and which would be linked to the book entry on the
school server.</blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra">Do you currently have a system in
place for organizing books on the schoolserver? I know
on the Haiti IIAB release we have a searchable copy of
Project Gutenberg; I don't know how easy it is to add
entries to that. In the past, we just added books by
creating another link that goes to a page with a list of
the PDF files available. But since we're looking at
adding at least 300 more books, plus whatever the texts
the students are able to write, so searching by title
would be nice / necessary. We're also looking for
sorting by level and topic. Finally, the ability to
comment and give rankings is essential if you want
students to start reading socially. If you've made /
plan to make any headway on the above, I'd love to hear
more about it. Thanks. </div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
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