The Talking Book Project encourages each local implementation to experiment with what works for their communities, sharing feedback with other implementations. The low-cost and scalable nature of the project also makes it easier for implementations to spring up wherever the demand is greatest. This is particularly important with respect to Talking Book Kiosks.
The Talking Book Project includes networked kiosks to improve content distribution and discovery. These kiosks might be considered a cross between Wikipedia and the iTunes Music Store. They serve as community centers for uploading and downloading knowledge recorded in audio, and they also help users discover the content that is most likely to interest them. Kiosks may host complementary businesses, such as support businesses or solar-powered stations for renting rechargeable batteries.
If Literacy Bridge distributed kiosks across one entire country at a time, the bias to pick countries based on overall literacy and poverty statistics would cause pockets of severe need to be missed in otherwise less severe countries. By developing the kiosk system without a top-down, command and control structure, new implementations can be driven by a more granular assessment of need.
Decentralization also reduces the ability for any one central force to attempt to shut down or control the distribution of information, just as the inclusion of a microphone on every device decentralizes the power to produce content.
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