Akademi to convert 1,001 books into digital format
The Kerala Sahitya Akademi here will publish as many as 1,001 books that completed the copyright terms from its collection of books in a digitalised format soon, so as to make them available to the public through free licensing, said Kerala Sahitya Akademi secretary R Gopalakrishnan.
He was speaking at the 12th anniversary celebrations of Swathanthra Malayalam Computing (SMC) held at the Akademi here on Monday.
The books that completed the copyright terms have been classified in this regard, which will soon be converted into digital format, so that anyone can have access to it free of cost, he said, adding that it would be a continuing process as more books published by the Akademi over the years will have to be added to the digital collection based on the validity of their copyright terms.
Satheesh Babu, director, international centre for free and open source software, said that the project is being carried out with the objective of reducing the digital divide in the society.
“The availability of Malayalam fond in mobile phone applications will make the transition more hassle-free and fast,” he said after inaugurating the project.
“Our focus now is on extending it to the differently-abled persons, who constitute nearly three percent of our society,” he said. G Nagaraj, president, Software Foundation of India, said that the free software movement, as a whole, has made a quantum jump towards the monopolisation of knowledge and underlined the need to curtail the dispersion of publication mafias in this sector.
The event, organised by Red Hat, in association with Wikipedia India chapter, also honoured K M Govi and Baiju M for their contributions to the growth of Malayalam computing.
As part of the event, a meeting of the Malayalam Wikipedia contributors and the release of new Malayalam fonts that adhere to the free software norms were also held.
A panel discussion on Malayalam language format was also held.