Need a shopping list ASAP to help Aboriginal Communities!

[Margism]

I am working on the "On Demand Book Service" project in the context of a class at the University of Toronto, Canada (odbs.knet.ca), and we were recently injected with a healthy dose of cash for a public event (For March 29th, literally weeks from now), and I can really use your help to brain storm a shopping list of materials we need to buy and ship to these communities. Specifically things that are REALLY hard to get when you live 600 KM from the closest thing that could be called a 'town'.

We need to order these asap, because we need to purchase them before March 31st, and ideally ship them before then as well. Since these materials and tools are presumably cheaper than the $2500-4000 set of equipment we originally have (high tech binding and scoring machines), not taking into account maintenance, materials, etc. we will be able to send more of these to more types of communities. Not only that, it will be much more interesting to see how First Nations communities take this DIY technology and adapt it for their own purposes. Building technology capacity from the ground up is MUCH more compatible with the OCAP principles (Ownership, Control, Access, Possession) that drives a researcher's relationship with Aboriginals.

Please comment to this thread, if anyone wants tso participate in the event on March 29th as a speaker (we are doing video conferencing), let me know too! Misty already looks like a potential candidate.

Margaret (margism.com)

[Misty]

Am I right in assuming that these are going to be imaging normal books rather than old, archival books? The reason I ask is that the choice of camera is going to depend on whether you just want the text, or whether you want a high-quality image of the page exactly as it really looks. If it's the former, that's great because it means you can use cheaper cameras without sacrificing anything important to you.

[Margism]

There is a lack of book resources up in First Nations communities, so I will not assume that they have a lot of books, but it will faciliate resources sharing of whatever resources they have available between communities that are highly dispersed. So I think high image quality is important.

The second part of the system is the printing on-demand; which are the printers themselves. Binding does not have to cost very much, and we have a book-maker on our team that has provided simple instructions on how to cut, score and bind your own books with basic arts and crafts materials.

And in addition to books, I am curious to see what other types of artifacts the First Nation Communities will deem 'scan worthy'. Their book culture (if they have one at all) is not the same as ours, but that is not to say that they don't have other physical artifacts that they want to scan. So again, it will be interesting to see what they document, imagine if it is a "3D scanner"....

Margaret

[daniel_reetz]

I think the "Beta Build" by Cratylus, though not completely developed, might represent ONE OF THE most completely documented build here -- he has a complete bill of materials and so on. It would be interesting to get a set of plans done for a Beta Build-like kit, too.

If anyone else thinks another build would be better or smarter, let me know. I think in this case, the less custom fabrication and the more bolt-together, the better. I am singling out the Beta Build only because it has a BOM already in place. I think there were one or two others...

[cratylus]

I'm not sure that my build would be very good for a platen size any bigger than it is. At least not without modification... basically because of the torque generated by the weight and the distance from the sliders to the handle.

Dan, what do you think would be necessary for a more complete set of documentation? More traditional ortho drawings? Different layout?

Also, I'd be happy to model anything in Sketchup if someone gets me design documents or photos.


Joel

[Misty]

I agree with Dan that Joel's is a good one. What size books does is it built for right now, Joel?

Nalfonso's build is nice too because it's designed to be portable; it collapses into something the size of a briefcase. Given your needs here, that could be something valuable to have! It doesn't have quite as completely codified a list of materials though.

[Margism]

Visual/Video based documentation seems to be preferred in an online setting, rather than text or instruction/heavy documentation for the Aboriginal populations. They have a more visual culture to begin with, and literacy levels are not consistent across the board if you want the documentation to be accessible. (For reference, see http://www.myknet.ca which is like geocities for aboriginals, and http://www.meeting.knet.ca, which is kind of like Ning but based on moodle. For a full sense of how these communities are integrating ITs in their daily needs, see http://www.knet.ca, a service provide in the province of Ontario, whom we are also partnership with in this event.)

That said, these might not be a prescriptive set of documentation, but more of a conceptual documentation. I am not by any means an expert on DIY documentation, but if they are organized by key functions and parts (i.e. building a bike? Need two wheels, gears, frame, handles, brakes, paddles, now go nuts), enough to get them started, they can always be pointed back to this community to solve problems that they encounter as they customize the DIY technology for needs that are unique to them.

[Misty]

If that's the kind of thing you're focusing on, then it sounds like a camera with fairly good image quality is probably going to be a priority for you. It might make sense to go for a single-camera design (like Ann's) so that you can spend more on a single camera rather than two of lower quality.

I'm using a single Canon PowerShot G10 at the moment, which is a "bridge" camera that's not quite as good as professional DSLRs but much better than standard digital cameras, while keeping a fairly compact size; I'm getting great results from it. It retails for around $450 new right now, but you can probably find it for less than that, or in the sub-$400 range used. I'm not too familiar with other manufacturers' offerings, but they likely have equivalents. DSLRs would provide even higher image quality, but also start at a higher price - Ann mentions buying her Canon EOS Rebel XSi for around $500 used, for instance.