egranary presentation - november 2007 hipnet meeting
TRANSCRIPT
Overview
•The WiderNet Project
•The eGranary Digital Library
•Strategies for Creating Broader Access to Knowledge
The WiderNet Project
• Since 2000, building capacity at African institutions for academic collaborations
• 3,600+ participants from 20 universities in Nigeria, Ghana, and East Africa (~30% women)
• Collected over $1,500,000 in new & used hardware, software, and refurbished 1,200+ used computers for partner universities in Nigeria
• Volunteers have put in over 10,000 hours
• Focus on practical, cost effective solutions• Helping to build a digital culture (best practices,
user groups, student internships, gender equity…)
“see one – do one – teach one”
The eGranary Digital Library
“The Internet in a Box”™
InternetConnectivity& Costs
Users/1000 population
Proportion of Average Salary
22.9 2
3.8
31.4
125.5
13.3
75.0
?9.9
63.5
41.1
18.1
131.5
340.2
680.2
350.1
16.8
39.05
29.04
16.12 67
.05
Source: 2005 World Development Indicators, World Bank
Europe
378.02
100Mb network backbone
100Mb network backbone
A Bandwidth Comparison
The University of Iowa28,000 students
1,000Mb x 2
Internet
LAN
2Mb common use
Ahmadu Bello University24,000 students
Internet LAN
(not to scale)
WiderNet Project Internet Speed TestAverage Speeds in Kbits for External Organizations Accessing Information on the WiderNet Project Server
17,103
2,587
831512 508 437 117 111 105 92 90 70 66 56 54 52 39 36 23 16 13 11
0
2,000
4,000
6,000
8,000
10,000
12,000
14,000
16,000
18,000
The Reliability of the Internet Connection
• Very rarely 24 x 7
• Many institutions hard pressed to deliver 6 hours a day
• Frequent lapses of a day or more
• Occasional lapses of a week or more
• Many points of failure, the external connection to blame about 70%
Replacing Bandwidthwith Storewidth
• 750+ GB information store inside LAN
• Millions of educational documents
• Collection created and maintained by librarians
• Multimedia, audio, video at full network speeds
• No bandwidth costs
• Augments a conventional Internet connection
Internet LAN
The eGranary Digital Library provides every networked computer high-speed access to millions
of documents and multimedia files.
LAN
Even when the Internet connection is broken!
X Internet
The eGranary Digital Library
• Permission from over 1,000 authors & publishers (MIT OpenCourseware, Wikipedia, WHO, Math TV, Virtual Hospital, etc.)
• Over ten million documents
• Tens of thousands of books, hundreds of journals, hundreds of Web sites & CDs
• 180+ installations in Africa, India, Bangladesh, Haiti
• Patrons open documents 100 – 5,000 times faster than over their Internet connection
eGranary Demonstration
WiderNet Project Internet Speed TestAverage Bandwidth by Organization in Kbits
9/21/04 -- 300+ tests
65,445
17,103
2,587831 512 508 437 117 111 105 92 90 70 66 56 54 52 39 36 23 16 13 11
0
10,000
20,000
30,000
40,000
50,000
60,000
70,000
Paradox of “Free”
• Internet = Free Access to Knowledge ???
• The Internet is beyond the reach of 7 out of 8 people
• Off-line delivery gives librarians more choices, more freedom, more flexibility, more affordability…
• New questions about distribution and access to knowledge
• What is “adequate” versus what is “ideal”
Overcoming “Bandwidth Blackmail”
• Expensive Internet connectivity only one option for delivering knowledge
• Better distinctions about our patrons’ use of resources
• Better understanding of their knowledge access needs
• Sculpting more precise knowledge access strategies for distinct groups of library patrons
A Curated Solution
• Content seen as “safe” for those leery of the wild and wooly Internet
• Primary and secondary schools, prisons, community libraries
• An additive option: can work in conjunction with a standard Internet connection
• Librarians/parents have more control
eGranary Digital Library
Local Content
LocalServer
Gatew
ay
Internet
Local Area NetworkMetropolitan Network
Expanding Access Even More
• Able to serve a larger patronage with nominal additional costs
• Free wireless public libraries
• Handheld libraries
• Mini-eGranaries – personal libraries
Seeking Passionate Partners
• A not-for-profit service project
• Believe that information access is important for all populations– Primary, secondary, tertiary education– Health care, legal services, public libraries
• Recognize that inexpensive information delivery is key
• Ready to contribute to serve the information poor
The eGranary Digital Library
Delivers!
The eGranary Digital Library
The WiderNet ProjectThe School of Library and Information Science
University of Iowa
http://www.egranary.org
Presenter: Cliff [email protected]