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Let’s Read Asia: An Open Source model that works for children, creators, and publishers

Tue, March 24, 10:00 to 11:30am EDT (10:00 to 11:30am EDT), Hyatt Regency Miami, Floor: 3rd, Foster II

Proposal

As the world of children’s book publishing continues to have more and more meaningful conversations about the role of open licenses, it is important that we make decisions that value the input and consider the needs of all stakeholders. Let’s Read, The Asia Foundation’s initiative to address children’s book scarcity, has worked with communities in eight countries to develop a model built on open source licenses that respects the diverse needs of children, the concerns of authors and illustrators, and the interests of commercial publishers.

Open source licenses allow powerful learning materials to be translated and adapted to meet the diverse needs of much broader audiences, empowering educators and learners (Bissel, 2009). With proper attribution, a community in Cambodia can download, translate, and even modify a book created in Kathmandu. At the same time, the same book can be adapted to meet the unique needs of a rural classroom in Indonesia. Through licensing education and proper agreements, open source books can help book creators to build a portfolio of books that reaches and even broader audience (Butcher, et al, 2016).

Finally, the wide range of open source licenses allows for proper negotiation between publishers and book creators while maintaining the massive reach of the materials. Let’s Read worked with children’s book creators and publishers in Nepal to build a collection of eight Creative Commons local-language books which are now, thanks to licensing agreements between the creators and local publishers, being sold by commercial publishers while also being made available for free on the Let’s Read app. Let’s Read has similar agreements in place with publishers in Cambodia, Myanmar, and Indonesia, all of which support publishers, creatives, and readers.

Carefully negotiated relationships like these allow Let’s Read to maximize the opportunities of Creative Commons licenses while maintaining a presence in the commercial and nonprofit publishing sectors. Working with Open Source licenses has allowed Let’s Read communities to build a digital library of more than 2,500 books that are available in as many as 23 languages. Today, The Asia Foundation continues to scale its Let’s Read initiative in Cambodia, Indonesia, Nepal, Vietnam, The Philippines, Myanmar, Laos and Thailand.

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