Friends:
I am forwarding a mail I received and a letter (on open books) that
appeared in a Kannada newspaper. The writer pleads for making all books
published by public institutions open access.
Arun
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From:
Date: Fri, Jul 18, 2014 at 5:00 PM
Subject: A reader's letter in Praja Vani on open access to knowledge
To: r.ramaswamy@gmail.com, iaschandra@gmail.com,
subbiah.arunachalam@gmail.com
Cc: padmaja@ias.ernet.in, ranjeeta@ias.ernet.in, sdhar@ias.ernet.in
Thought you might find this interesting. Below is my translation of a
letter from a reader published in the Kannada newspaper Praja Vani
yesterday, 17 July.
Arunachalam will know that Mysore University is working with Centre for
Internet and Society (CIS, Bangalore) to publish the Kannada Encyclopaedia
under a Creative Commons licence on the Internet. There are news reports
dated 12 July 15 July in The Hindu about this (seen in the Web edition).
Prakash
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Let books come under open licence
The volumes of Kannada Encyclopaedia published by Mysore University have
been made available to everyone on the Internet under the Creative Commons
Licence (open licence). This is a commendable initiative.
There is now a need for all organizations of government and for academies,
councils, all universities and other institutions that receive funds from
government to make available books, periodicals and all kinds of
publications in art and literature to be published henceforth
simultaneously under an open licence on the Internet.
This, along with optimizing current procedures of making published books
available to the public by printing only as many copies as are required,
will not only help avoid unnecessary expenditure but also honour the right
of all to obtain knowledge. In response to the question whether the
Internet is accessible to people in villages and to others, we may say this
is easier than getting access to a bookshop that can provide the books we
need.
I have been seeing the struggles of one of our universities to sell the
textbooks it has published. It is more important to make books available to
those in need of them than for the economics of selling to limit the spread
of knowledge. Government should give effect to an appropriate order in this
regard.
-- S. Nataraja Boodaalu, Tumkur
Readers' Voice, Praja Vani, 17 July 2014.
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