Archivists,

Our offer is to have the Internet Bookmobile show up to make books
anywhere in they bay area. Our request is that you help with time or
money to kick off a separate organization dedicated to building
bookmobiles. (for background: http://www.archive.org/bookmobile for
contributing:
https://www.venturecollective.org/donate.html?proj=bookmobile&id=149 )

In the fall of 2002, as the Supreme Court was hearing arguments in
Eldred v. Ashcroft, we put together the "Internet Bookmobile" - a 1992
Ford Aerostar with a net connection, laptops, printers, cutter, scorer
and binding machine. We traveled the country from East Palo Alto,
California, to Washington, DC, stopping at schools and libraries and
making books for kids and adults.

It worked remarkably well. At $1 per book, $5k for the
printing&binding equipment, and $15k for a full bookmobile-- this could
be a wonderful thing. Currently there are about 20k books on the
Internet, and we are part of a project to scan 1 million. The dream
is that every kid would have access to a million book library through
the Internet and print-on-demand bookmobiles and stationary facilities.

To make this opportunity a reality, the bookmobilist and a group of
volunteers, have created a separate nonprofit organization, Anywhere
Books, as a project of the Rudolf Steiner Foundation. Their mission is
to deploy 5,000 systems in 5 years, to make a difference in literacy
and poverty around the world.

And exciting things are happening. On a recent trip to India, we
described the Internet bookmobile to some folks in the government, and
within two days, the Ministry of Information Technology had approved
the funding for two bookmobiles, which are currently in service around
Delhi. They are now building one bookmobile for each of the 30 Indian
states.

And the Library of Alexandria in Egypt - which hosts a complete copy of
the Internet Archive - has also agreed to create an Internet
bookmobile. Clearly, the idea of the bookmobile - putting the public
domain into action by creating books - has potential, especially in the
developing world.

Any amount will help; we're hoping to average $100 or more. We're
shooting for $50,000 to increase our book production capabilities and
build partnerships for long-term funding. Given the support and
enthusiasm we’ve gotten from many of you already, we think this is
attainable. (venture collective is helping with a donation system
https://www.venturecollective.org/donate.html?proj=bookmobile&id=149 )

Onward!

-brewster
Digital Librarian
Internet Archive