March 1, 2015

Kickstarter Project: “Librii: A New Kind Of Digital Library For The Developing World”

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The Librii project has raised $43,579 (as of 4pm on March 28, 2013) on Kickstarter. It needs about $6,400 more to be funded. There are six days remaining.

From Fast Company (via Scientific American):

This new library-in-a-shipping-container plans on using growing Internet access in Africa to create a new model for making available both electronic information and physical books.

It’s a conundrum that library advocates have struggled with for years: in many areas in the developing world, libraries run on donations, which means they often end up with irrelevant books that never even get removed from their boxes. People still come to libraries in these places for a quiet place to read and study, but certainly not because of the resources they provide. Recently, a crop of initiatives have launched that aim to make libraries more relevant again. Librii, a project from Libraries Across Africa that’s seeking $50,000 in funding from Kickstarter, is one of them.

[Clip]

Much of the online portal’s content will be free, but Librii plans on charging a small fee for some of it to generate revenue. That’s the model: Librii thinks it can move away from a more philanthropic set-up by generating enough cash from its libraries to keep them going. Revenue will also allow Librii to keep its online content up to date.

Read the Complete Article, View Video

Additional Images via Co.Exist

Direct to Kickstarter Page

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Gary Price About Gary Price

Gary Price (gprice@mediasourceinc.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. Before launching INFOdocket, Price and Shirl Kennedy were the founders and senior editors at ResourceShelf and DocuTicker for 10 years. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com, and is currently a contributing editor at Search Engine Land.
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