Low Tech Gutenberg? 108
Peace Corps Guy asks: "I have a friend who recently left for a two year Peace Corps stint in Mozambique. While there she has limited access to electricity, no technology, and not a lot to do with her 'off' time. She's a big literature fan, and many of us here at home would like to send a care package - but how best to ship pieces of free online text like Project Gutenberg to a developing nation? We can print it (high shipping and printing costs), print it very small and ship her a high quality fresnel lens (awkward), or put it all on a cheap PDA, which would be a high theft risk en route and in situ. High shipping costs on weight and volume are another major limiting factor. What alternative solutions can Slashdot readers suggest for shipping a freely available byte-stream to someone without a computer?"
Should have thought of this *before* she left (Score:3, Interesting)
Make books on CD (Score:4, Interesting)
One suggestion (Score:3, Interesting)
From there you can burn to a CD, easily playable in any $40 portable player. Heck, you could send 2 or 3 for the price of a PDA if theft concerns are that high.
If you want to send over a real reading experience and PDAs are risky to send and there are no computers, then I dunno how you're going to get around sending either the real thing or the text in microfiche or something along those lines.
Just buy real books (Score:4, Interesting)
At those prices, just buying the book is probably going to be a whole lot cheaper than printing the files yourself, and is going to be cheaper to ship as well (since the paper in pulp paperbacks tends to be lighter weight than printer paper.)
On top of that, the dimensions of real books are going to make them a lot easier for your friend to store and transport, and the covers are going to prevent as much wear and tear on the books. (I have lots of computer printouts of free books online. They don't last long, even though I just keep them on a desk.)
If you really really want to send a LOT of books, you can send a PDA, but that's also going to be expensive, and it's going to harm the ability of your friend to enjoy the books - she won't be able to read them just anywhere, because she would be attracting attention to herself, and in almost any country in the world foreigners with expensive crap are going to be more likely to be mugged. On top of that, you're going to have to send her a regular wall charger since she doesn't have a computer, and those things are bulky and annoying to carry around. And nobody likes a book that starts bitching about low batteries while you're reading it.
Do her a favor, don't bother being trendy or 'e', and just buy her some real books. Heck, maybe there's an online bookseller in Mozambique that sells lots of english-language books, so you can save even more on shipping costs.
Don't be selfish! (Score:3, Interesting)
Ship paper, not electronics. Don't ship small print either!
Your friend is supposed to be helping these people. When you ship an electronic book she reads it in her off time, and then what? Ship paper and she has something to leave behind as a gift when she leaves. (Note, there may be laws against this) Something that might encourage some of the natives to read for fun, which makes them better.
Prefer books printed on acid free paper. With lose pages from a printer you can count on one getting blown away in the wind and then what? (Note, you can bind your own books, something to look into though I don't know if it is worth it) Normal acid paper will be destroyed in a few years. These are people who will have enough trouble getting books, they don't need to have the few they have destroyed early.
an Ethiopian project perspective (Score:2, Interesting)
Africa is a diverse place with different needs. Many of these project are looking for solutions that are not that different from your typical under funded public library or university. They may have a donated server in the back room that they need to figure out how to best utilize it.
Our project, is working with non-profits and public institutions we have a few systems set up there with OpenBSD and Koha. Koha works just like any other library management software. But it supports links to on-line resources. Ideally having "copyleft" medical journals and Gutenberg text stored locally would be great. The local Internet connections are unreliable. These desires we have for our own schools and research institution are not that different from those on the other side of the pond.
Cheers,
C. Gilbert
Bethany Memorial Foundation
Send it _as_ a book (Score:4, Interesting)
Runs up the shipping costs a little, but since hardcovers feel heavy anyway, only an xray will show it up. You can even thwart some of those by putting a couple of leaves of tinfoil inside the covers, but you'd be better off using tinfoil silhouettes to spell out "P D A" to help avoid bomb scares.
Send a game boy advance (Score:3, Interesting)