Theos-Talk Archives (January 2011 Message tt00060)

I think that since Google has already set up an iniative to digitize some of
the worlds libraries, perhaps this could be an option. Though I am not sure
if the out of print books would be in libraries who have already taken part
in Googles project I would assume that if a theosophical org volunteered
their library to be digitized by Google it could take place. The link below
is to the Google library project in case anyone is not familiar with the
project.

http://books.google.com/googlebooks/library.html

On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 9:34 AM, MKR <mkr777@Xn-9zgFBZqlsEm1npsCYA6ZjLsQfj1Pp2LeY97vja4QpJZfILNiItrrBGKm_rjMLJU2B4a6QTA.yahoo.invalid> wrote:

>
>
> Out of print theosophical books - A simple solution
>
> There are many out of print theosophical books which are invaluable to the
> student world-wide. The books are out of print because either it is not
> viable to reprint it due to very low demand or there are some political or
> public reasons not to. So far there was no solution with the traditional
> approach to production of books. Digital world and Internet has opened up
> immense opportunities and we should not miss it.
>
> Since every organization tries to make a buck from every activity, one
> approach can be to make them available on e-readers such as Kindle. There
> are two problems with this. Most theosophists are not rich. They do not own
> Kindle. Even I do not own one. Secondly I was told that the commercial
> outfits which will convert a book to Kindle format is expensive in that
> they
> want upto $1.00 a page. Even print on demand is going to involve pre-print
> expense which needs to be recovered and both this cost and production cost
> may keep the price of books high for most theosophists. Also, print on
> demand is not available world wide.
>
> So doing nothing is not a good policy considering the low public awareness
> of theosophy and TS. Some solution need to be found and found now.
>
> Here is my take. If the theosophical publishers allow their out of print
> books to be scanned and converted to pdf files, then they can be made
> available for download. If this is done, many volunteers around the world
> with access to scanners would do the job at no cost to the publisher. This
> needs out of the box thinking and it would work like a miracle and within a
> short time most of the out of print theosophical books would be available
> for everyone.
>
> All this needs is for the movers and shakers take off the business hat and
> put on theosophical hat and think through the whole issue. If anyone has a
> better idea, I would like to hear about it.
>
> MKR
>
> There is no religion higher than Truth.
>
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>
> 
>


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