On 10/1/07, Angus McLellan <angusmclellan(a)gmail.com> wrote:
geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> writes
On 01/10/2007, Earle Martin
<wikipedia(a)downlode.org> wrote:
On 30/09/2007, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
2)Literacy levels. India has a literacy rate of a
bit under 70%
Out of a population of 1.14 billion [1], that leaves us a mere 798
million people. Of whom (if we take a na?ve view and assume literacy
as a prerequisite) some 65 million speak English as a second
language... [2]
small pool to do the writing
...and over forty million of those people have access to the internet. [3]
I don't think we're going to be short of willing writers any time soon.
Not our writers. Writers to write the local history books. Writers to
write the detailed history of every train used on the Indian lines
ever. Writers to write books on local football and cricket teams.
There are 22 million books in the National Library of India. Over 25%
are written in Indian languages. The library receives copies of 902
newspapers and 17000-odd periodicals, and has over a million volumes
of bound periodicals. [ Source
http://www.nlindia.org ]
And do the states have state libraries with manuscript and periodical
holdings? Well, Andhra Pradesh does, even if the library doesn't yet
have a website, so quite probably they all do.
Anyway, you were saying?
A minute after posting this, McLellan realises that the "millions"
comma is lakhs, not millions. Oops.
Still, given the number of articles an enterprising Wikipedian can
write from one book, the NLI should be good for umpteen million
articles, and the periodicals should be good for millions more. And
when those are done, there will be tens of thousands more books and
journals published to write another huge heap of articles.
Angus