OPEN CONTENT ALLIANCE-Libraries going open!

Imagine a world where each human can have access to information from books, no matter where on earth he or she is! Open Content Alliance is striving to get the books from libraries in universities, online, for each of us to access...the abundant information that would be possible will enable us to view the world with endless possibilities...and alternatives...
This would also unite a lot of elements which are disjointed from each other..in this world..in the current system!
A new consciousness would evolve bringing us together and giving meaning to the yet unrealized phrase - WE ARE ALL CONNECTED!!!

What is the Open Content Alliance?

The Open Content Alliance (OCA) represents the collaborative efforts of a group of cultural, technology, nonprofit, and governmental organizations from around the world that will help build a permanent archive of multilingual digitized text and multimedia content. Content in the OCA archive will be accessible soon through this website and through Yahoo!

The OCA will encourage the greatest possible degree of access to and reuse of collections in the archive, while respecting the content owners and contributors. Contributors to the OCA must agree to the principles set forth in the Call for Participation.

Building a Digital Archive of Global Content for Universal Access.
For further details please visit: http://www.opencontentalliance.org/
http://www.openlibrary.org/details/oca_test_004
This movie was commissioned by Internet Archive for the 2007 Open Content Alliance meeting held on October 17, 2007. click here for the movie

Mules as libraries: a novel approach

How far can a book go? How far can it take us? The answer is "very far," according to this BBC story about the Bibliomulas Project in Trujillo, Venezuela.
The bibliomulas – mules carrying loads of books, laptops and projectors – trudge for hours over mountain trails to remote village locations, accompanied by human participants from the Universidad Valle del Momboy. When they reach their destinations, children gather to hear stories read aloud by the university students. This is more than a few hours of story time: project leaders Christina and Juana explain that they're not only spreading the joy of reading, but helping to improve the quality of life in these communities through environmental education and internet access. Student volunteers help the children to plant trees, while adults can utilize the laptops to tap into wireless connections.
Tap into your creativity...there is more to this world than all the negativity we face every single moment...we can find a solution to all the problems that exist currently...with the positivity and creative potential!
Courtesy: Idealist.org
Picture courtesy: BBC

Library Creation

Recently we were discussing about creating a book through Accessible Horizon Films, sort of a learning tool for the kids at Siragu Montessori School. In fact, we were even thinking of building a library source for them. Although this is in the very basic stages of development, we need ideas on what topics to cover. We suggested comic books like Amar Chitra Katha, Tinkle, Archies, etc which are an effective way towards cognitive development in English, the language and its grammar. There is no specific genre of books or topics you can suggest, just that we have to be creative to pick topics/books that can help in overall development of children aged 3-10. So if anyone has any ideas, please feel free to share them with us.
The goal: Create a library of books, resources for Siragu School, so by the end of a year, they will have something to go to, for creative/knowledge acquisition.