Print-on-demand -- Uganda

Posted by tomo at 12:24 AM in technology . | 2 Comments

"Most kids had never read a book before. In some cases, they had never seen a reading book before."

Anywhere Books has got a mobile book printer driving around rural Africa allowing kids who have severely limited access to real books the oppurtunity to choose and then print out a variety of books, such as the bible, as well as more pragmatic texts on agriculture. I can't complain with the idea of bringing more books to this region but I do wonder if printing out bibles and other easily and cheaply available works of fiction are the best use of this limited, roving resource in a region where even just the power required to run the bookmobile is a hot commodity. One wonders if they couldn't just bring an already printed supply of certain-to-be-popular texts. Then again the cost of printing is probably nothing compared to the cost of getting the bookmobile out there in the first place.