To Whom it May Concern,
This request for donation of materials is part of the eGranary Digital Library
(www.widernet.org/digitallibrary) created by the WiderNet Project at The
University of Iowa. The WiderNet Project is a nonprofit organization that aims
to improve digital communication and access to information for students and
scholars in developing countries.
Since many of the institutions we work with do not have adequate Internet
connections, this project delivers digital information and technology to Web
servers inside the institution, where it can be accessed quickly at no cost
over their local area networks. Currently, we deliver this information by
installing hard drives on the servers. In the future, we will be delivering
this information by other means, such as satellite transmission. So far, we
have delivered the eGranary Digital Library to over 500 schools, clinics and
other organizations worldwide, and the results have been immediate and
gratifying. Students and faculty alike have benefited greatly from easy access
to hundreds of thousands of current academic materials.
We are in the process of collecting additional Internet-based content, donated
by the authors, which will be accessible to professors and students in
developing countries. As a compliment to this material, we are hoping to
provide them with cutting edge software to further bridge the digital divide.
We are asking to donate software products to our partner universities and/or
provide software that we can include in our digital library for download to our
partner institutions' intranets (but not on the Internet.)
We are specifically requesting a donation of the following materials for future
versions of the eGranary Digital Library:
Apache OpenOffice, located at https://www.openoffice.org/
Please indicate the type of permission you wish to allow when responding to
this message.
-- FULL PERMISSION (To donate requested materials).
-- PARTIAL PERMISSION (To donate materials that you specify.)
-- DENY PERMISSION (To not donate materials to students in developing countries
at this time.)
If you wish to limit our delivery of your content to only hard drive
installation or only satellite transmission, please indicate this as well.
More information about the eGranary Digital Library, including a list of
frequently asked questions can be found at:
www.widernet.org/digtallibrary<http://www.widernet.org/digtallibrary>. More
information about the WiderNet Project -- which includes training computer
technicians, coaching decision makers, and shipping donated computers and
software to our project partners -- can be found at www.widernet.org.
We hope that you will join our efforts to provide students and scholars around
the world with access to educational information and resources.
Sincerely,
Natasha Mencher
