The New eGranary Digital Library has Arrived
 
WiderNet Project, University of Iowa


The WiderNet Project at the University of Iowa is proud to announce the delivery of the eGranary750. Three times larger than the previous version and featuring an improved search engine and user-friendly interfaces for easy navigation, the eGranary 750 puts knowledge at your fingertips with little or no connectivity.

The most convenient, the Personal Edition is great for individuals on the move or for a single computer workstation. Less hassle than a book-based library, the plug-and-play device easily connects to any Windows computer with a USB port and provides a single workspace instant access to the offline library.

With 750GB of storage space, the eGranary holds the largest collection of educational materials that can be accessed without an Internet connection. It contains over 10 million documents including: 40,000 books, 200 journals, 120 cd-roms, and access to 1,000 different websites including OpenCourseWare from MIT course offerings and the entire Wikipedia. From Project Gutenberg's complete collection of classic literature to tutorials on how to play the violin, there is a lot to learn from the 750GB eGranary.

The eGranary digital library includes one year of email and web-based technical support. Access to digital information has never been so practical. With installations in more that 150 educational institutions in developing areas worldwide, including Africa, India, and Haiti (among others), the eGranary provides lightning fast access to more informational materials, videos, audio files, journals, books, and websites than ever before . Dr. Stephen Akintunde, the Deputy University Librarian at the University of Jos, Nigeria said "The eGranary Digital Library has been a great bridge in the digital divide for us. It has served the purpose of bringing the Internet to our doorsteps. The eGranary holds great promise for developing economies where bandwidth and the cost of Internet access is high."

The eGranary Digital Library was created in 2000 by the WiderNet Project, a service organization based out of the University if Iowa's School of Library and Information Science to deliver educational materials to the seven out of eight people worldwide who aren't ble to access the Internet. Since then, the organization has worked continuously to improve the eGranary Digital Library and with the release of the eGranary750, the WiderNet Project continues its effort to bridge the digital divide and improve digital communications in developing countries around the world.

The new eGranary750 is for purchase and costs $750 for a USB stand-alone and a $2,800 for a server edition. For those in need of computers, networks, and onsite training the most cost-effective way to deploy the eGranary Digital Library is the eGranary Lab, which can serve hundred of users for a cost of $18,000 for a single institution or $80,000 for 10 institutions. For more information or to purchase an eGranary, visit www.egranary.org or www.widernet.org.