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Digitizing FSI | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| onebir Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 7163 days ago 487 posts - 503 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin | Message 81 of 237 19 April 2005 at 10:52am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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On scanning books - it just occurred to me some of us live in countries with low labour costs (eg China, Poland, Mexico). If the relevant individuals are interested, + have the equipment etc, maybe it would make sense for them to 'outsource' the book scanning to locals.
The 'going rate' for chinese tuition from uni students in Beijing is around $1.50 an hour - in ShiJiaZhuang should be cheaper (and many of guys are computer literate). So $50 would pay for digitizing a lot of book... We could set up a fund for each course and 'vote' for the ones to digitise with paypal donations, perhaps with little charts showing the estimated cost, and donations to date. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tomd Newbie learn-dutch.info/ Joined 7159 days ago 4 posts - 4 votes | Message 82 of 237 19 April 2005 at 11:35am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Hi, I might be interested to participate, but at the moment I have no FSI courses. I have experience with digitalization of a short Dutch course for my SuperMemo collection, and also large set of training tapes from a psychology field, both from tapes. Also have a scanner.
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| Malcolm Triglot Retired Moderator Senior Member Korea, South Joined 7315 days ago 500 posts - 515 votes 5 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Korean Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Latin | Message 83 of 237 20 April 2005 at 3:06pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
After giving it some thought, I've decided to do the same and only convert and share the original courses that come straight from the source. This limits to total number of courses that I'm able to convert and share, but I should still have enough to keep me busy.
Most large cities in North America have a formidable network of public libraries that their inhabitants are completely unaware of. I suggest that everyone do the following: Go to Google and type the name of your city plus "public library" to find the official site. Do a general keyword search for "Foreign Service Institute" and see what comes up. I just did this for Seattle and I found tons of materials (both books and cassettes). Some of them were the audio-forum and barron's releases, but many of them dated to the 60's and 70's and came straight from the source and say something like "Washington, DC : Foreign Service Institute, Dept. of State : distributed by National AudioVisual Center, 1965. 1965". I'm not sure what the situation is like outside North America, but I'd assume there's much less in the way of FSI courses. Edited by Malcolm on 20 April 2005 at 3:08pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| guillaume Pentaglot Groupie France Joined 7181 days ago 59 posts - 57 votes Speaks: French*, English, German, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Mandarin | Message 84 of 237 20 April 2005 at 10:52pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Well I've checked on the library of the city where I live. All the tapes are listed with Foreign Service Institute as author and with Barron's as publisher (except a set of tapes distributed by Multilingua, Inc)
As for the books, they often have two different author, one is the Foreign Service Institute, and the other one seems to be the actual author of the book. Are those books copyrighted ? If it's ok to distribute those books, I can try to scan one of them. I can't promise anything thought since it's the end of the quarter and I'm going to be overwhelmed with homework. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Alex Newbie Germany Joined 7188 days ago 29 posts - 31 votes | Message 85 of 237 21 April 2005 at 1:44am | IP Logged | ||||||||
That sounds like a good idea. At least for the popular courses like Spanish it should be easy to raise enough money to buy a copy of the original course. By the way, the complete Spanish course (48 tapes, Levels 1-4) is currently listed on ebay, however, they only ship to the US, so I can't buy it. Looks like it could be the original. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| onebir Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 7163 days ago 487 posts - 503 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin | Message 86 of 237 21 April 2005 at 5:20am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Do the FSI courses via Audio Forum count as straight from the source? I have the Turkish one at the moment, and there are no copyright notices on the book or tapes.
One library near me (Barbican, London) has: Turkish Basic Course (units 1-30 of 50) Hungarian Basic Course (units 1-12) But I found the whole Turkish Basic Course for $50 on www.abebooks.com which lets you search lots of bookshops. The site also includes contact details for the booksellers so you can get a pretty good idea what you're buying. Guys in the North America will be able to pick up some real bargains. Shipping to Europe can cost. But even after duty <$100 for the Turkish Basic Course - which is far better than anything else I've used - is a bargain. (I'm planning to review it & say a little about Turkish soon.)
I think given AudioForum prices, with 3-4 interested parties the savings would be worthwhile. And it looks like many of more popular languages are available from libraries. Edited by onebir on 21 April 2005 at 5:28am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| delectric Diglot Senior Member China Joined 7181 days ago 608 posts - 733 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: German | Message 87 of 237 21 April 2005 at 9:33am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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It would indeed be cheap to digitize material in Shijiazhuang. To give you an idea of the costs round here a teacher gets paid 1000rmb a month that's 70 pounds or about $130ish? Not sure about the exchange rate.
It just so happens that I also have a paypal account from trading on ebay. China is the home of pirated material and so have a pedigree in copying things. I have already, done business with the Chinese, where I have found the factory for the product I wanted to buy. There's some serious money to be made here! Also nearly all my friends are Chinese and have a few influential contacts so I'm sure it would be quite easy to find a place to digitize material. The thing is have we got the will to do it? I will be leaving this city at the end of June but will be returning to a different location in China. The post can be slow over here. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| onebir Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 7163 days ago 487 posts - 503 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin | Message 88 of 237 21 April 2005 at 10:41am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Well I'm going to China for at least a few months pretty soon. I'll try to take the FSI Turkish course with me if I don't get a chance to do something with it here (I'd have to borrow the equipment).
[Taking a Turkish course to China's not as mad as it sounds incidentally: there's a Turkic speaking Uighur minority, and the Turkic languages are supposed to be very closely related.] In China, I'd have thought some of the internet cafes would have the gear. Lots of better off young people have computer equipment too. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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