World Book & Copyright Day 2020: Celebrating the wonders of open licensing and collaboration with a very special new book
Posted by Pallavi Kamath on April 23, 2020World Book & Copyright Day is an international initiative to promote the enjoyment of books and reading. By championing books and copyright, UNESCO stands up for creativity, diversity and equal access to knowledge.1
Aparna Kapur, Editor at Pratham Books, writes about the making of ‘The Novel Coronavirus: We Can Stay Safe’ - made possible through an amazing collaborative effort.
‘The Novel Coronavirus: We Can Stay Safe’ is a book aimed to help children better understand what they can do to stay safe during this pandemic. The book isn't just special because it was created in ten days, or because it's available in five languages. What makes this book remarkable is that it involves thirteen of India's best children's book writers and illustrators, and characters from seven of Pratham Books' most popular books - all released under the CC BY 4.0 license, and free to read on StoryWeaver.
Above everything else, artists define themselves by their work. Their words, their pictures, their design -- these are closest to their hearts. So when creators agree to release their work under Creative Commons, it is their way of showing their trust in the publisher, and a commitment to a common goal. In our case, that goal is 'to see a book in every child's hand'.
For the last 15 years, Pratham Books has been working towards this goal by publishing affordable openly licensed picture books, and making them available for free on StoryWeaver - ensuring they can be accessed and enjoyed by children all over the world, some of whom may not otherwise have had access to books. This has helped us create a sense of community with our creators. Which is why when we asked them to be a part of this project, nearly everyone responded within minutes, telling us that they would be happy to.
In the current state of things, when everyone needs to stay indoors as much as possible, the value of digital content is hard to ignore. The internet is helping all of us stay connected to each other, but also to things that give us joy and comfort. By openly licensing content, we aren't just removing the locks from our doors, we are throwing the door wide open and welcoming everyone in.
The book is already available in five languages. And with the CC BY 4.0 license, and the community-based StoryWeaver platform, people all over the world will be able to translate it, or use the images to make their own posters or books, or download a PDF and share it with people.
Multilingual. Generous. Collaborative. Worldwide.
When open licensing is done right, it can do wonders.
Read, download, translate ‘The Novel Coronavirus: We Can Stay Safe’ on StoryWeaver here.
A big thank you to the wonderful team of creators and experts who made this possible.
The book is written and illustrated by Bijal Vachharajani, Deepa Balsavar, Jayesh Sivan, Lavanya Naidu, Maegan Dobson Sippy, Meera Ganapathy, Nimmy Chako, Priya Kuriyan, Rajiv Eipe, Renuka Rajiv, Sanjana Kapur, Sheena Deviah and Sunaina Coelho. Thank you to Anirban Mahapatra, Dr N S Prashanth, Shambhavi Naik and Dr Tanya Seshadri for their help with fact-checking.
फॉंटच्या जाचकतेतून अखेर मुक्ती
Posted by Remya Padmadas on October 13, 2017
Sushrut Kulkarni, has 20 years experience in the field of computer networks and websites. He is a technical writer and translates and writes in Marathi, Hindi, English and German. He writes for various reputed publishers, newspapers, documentaries and radio.
One of the major technical hurdles for regional languages was fonts. That sphere was dominated by proprietary and non-standard fonts.
मराठी आणि अन्य भारतीय भाषांना कॉंप्युटरवर रुळायला बराच काळ जावा लागला. याचं मुख्य कारण म्हणजे फॉंट वापरण्यातले तांत्रिक (आणि आर्थिकही!) अडथळे होते. सुरुवातीला केवळ वृत्तपत्रं आणि प्रकाशनसंस्थांकडेच कॉंप्युटरवर मुद्रण या मुख्य उद्देशानं मराठी वापरलं जात असे. वेगवेगळ्या कंपन्यांनी तयार केलेले फॉंट वेगवेगळ्या प्रमाणांवर आधारित असल्यानं एका कॉम्प्युटरवर टाईप केलेलं दुसऱ्याला त्याच्या कॉम्प्युटरवर वाचणं अनेकदा शक्यच होत नसे. दरवेळी फॉंट बसवणं किंवा ते विकत घेणं शक्य नव्हतं. यामुळं प्रादेशिक भाषांमधलं लेखन इंटरनेटवर उपलब्ध व्हायलाही खूप वेळ लागू लागला.
यावर उपाय सापडला तो युनिकोडच्या (Unicodeच्या) रुपानं! युनिकोड ही जगातल्या कुठल्याही कॉम्प्युटरवर (किंवा मोबाईल फोनवर) वाचता येईल अशी एक लिहिण्याची पद्धत आहे. कॉम्प्युटर क्षेत्रातील काही कंपन्यांनी आणि तज्ज्ञांनी एकत्र येऊन ३ जानेवारी १९९१ रोजी युनिकोड कॉन्सर्टियमची स्थापना अमेरिकेत केली. या सर्वांनी मिळून फॉन्टसाठी एक विशिष्ट मानक (स्टॅंडर्ड) बनवलं. यापुढं फॉन्टस्‍चा जो विकास आहे तो या युनिकोड आधारावर होईल असं ठरवण्यात आलं. त्यामुळं कुठल्याही फॉन्टमध्ये जगातल्या अनेक भाषा सामावता येऊ लागल्या. आता बहुसंख्य युनिकोड फॉंट नि:शुल्क उपलब्ध असल्याने इंटरनेटवर इंग्रजीखेरीज अन्य भाषांमध्ये देवाणघेवाण मोठ्या प्रमाणावर शक्य झालेली आहे.
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StoryWeaver Spotlight: Swathi Pandit
Posted by Remya Padmadas on September 29, 2018
Swati Pandit is pursuing her BA in NMKRV College For Women. She loves learning languages and is fluent in 16 of them! She is passionate about music and is learning the violin and flute and can also play the keyboard, guitar, ukulele. She also sings, writes and composes poetry! Recently her book of poetry Trilingual Poetry got released by professor Dr.S.Ranganath.
Q: What type of person do you think makes the best translator for children’s stories?
According to me a person who can think from the perspective of a child....A person who is open to various changes.... And a person who can imagine widely and wildly is the best translator for children's stories.
Q: Do you have any advice for anyone interested in becoming a translator?
My advice is that, please come and discover this amazing world of translating. This work requires a lot of patience and passion. So, people interested out there set your brains on fire and you'll fall in love with translating.
Q: What is your personal relationship to language and/or translation?
Each language has its own beauty. And I see each language as a beautiful living entity. This is a musical instrument which brings people from various places together.
Q: When you’ve been given a story to translate, what’s your process, and how long does it generally take?
I have a habit of reading the given story twice... First I give a general reading then I thoroughly read it again...I understand the gist and go on with the translation... It takes 4 to 5 days for the final version.
Q: What do stories in translation bring to young readers?
If a story is translated in their very own or their dear language they will feel delighted to read it. They will read the story with ease and will get some interest towards reading more.
Q: You’ve translated stories for us. Which has been your favorite to work on?
My most favorite stories are Chutti and Cyborg Taata.
Q: What is the hardest thing about translating from English into Kannada? How do you navigate words or phrases that are tricky to translate??
Sometimes finding appropriate words at the right places becomes tricky and then choosing the nearer word becomes the solution. Sometimes this paves the way for inserting a new and interesting phrase. Sometimes change in the voice is needed. It's challenging but it's fun at the same time.
Q: How do you feel when your story reaches the child?
I feel satisfied and really happy that a child can understand and interpret things!
Q: Translating stories must have required research when it came to STEM related terms and concepts.. How did you explore new objects and concepts?
When it comes to STEM stories I have referred to some books and understood what it is and then I proceeded. While translating Cyborg Dadu to Kannada I got to know various things about how cyborg can change mankind etc. It has really expanded my knowledge.
Q: As a Multilingual Translator, Young Poet how do you connect yourself with Children's Literature, what do you feel is the challenge in this regard?
Children's literature is known for its widespread imagination and energising themes and being a poet requires childlike heart. More than challenge I feel that it is a trigger to the monotonous mind of mine.
Q: As a student and voracious reader, Stories in which form are best received by kids? Poetry, Picture books, Read aloud etc?
According to me, poetry and picture books are the best ones to give into a child's hand because the rhythm of the poetry tends to get registered in their minds. And picture books makes their thinking more colorful and picture is grasped by them very quickly. I personally am a great fan of picture and poetry books.