Public-Domain Bookmobile Hits the Road

At Belle Haven Elementary School in Palo Alto, right about... *now*, the Internet Archive Bookmobile is starting its ten-day, cross-country trip to the Supreme Court. They're putting the hammer down (itinerary) (blog) to make it to Ohio for the Bookmobile Conference. Then they'll drive into Washington, D.C. on Oct. 8, the day before the nine Justices hear the copyright-extension case Eldred v. Ashcroft. The contraption is a Ford Aerostar with decals, satellite dish, wireless LAN, laptops... and a printer and binder to do on-demand printing of any of the thousands of public domain books on the internet. (The webpage says 20,000 but the decals claim 1,000,000... maybe they have 50 fonts :) Update: 10/01 01:33 GMT by T : Nick Arnett writes "The piece about Belle Haven School's bookmobile put the school in Palo Alto. It's not; it's across the freeway, in a far less wealthy and privileged neighborhood, where access to technology is much less common than in Palo Alto. (I'm on the board of Plugged In, a community technology center in the same area as Belle Haven.)"

Comments

Yes!

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's run behind it and warchalk!

So lemme check and make sure I understand this...

[Gorm the DBA]

They're going to use countless reams of paper to document on hardcopy the information that's been digitized from the original paper copies...

Brilliant...just brilliant!

Hmm.

[loraksus]

I somehow doubt that the justices will be impressed by printouts of ascii porn.

Re:So lemme check and make sure I understand this.

[unicron]

Greenpeace will be sure to flip over their van.

arrested for wardriving

[Anonymous Coward]

Dateline Washington: Bookmobile crew arrested for wardriving.

"We're amazed that they thought they'd get away with it; that dish isn't exactly low-profile", said police spokesman Lt. Clueless.

"The occupants of the vehicle have been arrested and detained for possible terrorist acts. We believe they were attempting to download and print, on the spot, confidential government files."

Sources said the lack of confidential documents was not considered in the decison to make the arrest. "What else could they possibly be doing with that kind of equipment? They were clearly up to no good."

In response, the Homeland Security Department upgraded the national alert status to light pink. A White House spokesman denied rumors that the president's wardrobe selection was crossed with security documents. "He just thought he'd give orange a shot. What's wrong with orange for a tie? Besides, the president has been dressing himself for years, he doesn't need a wardrobe list."

Tom Ridge(winner of the annual "Who exactly is he anyway and how did he get to be where he is?" award, could not be reached for comment as he was busy looking severe, concerned, and important while personally inspecting a donut factory to make sure the nation's donut supply would not be in danger in case of a biological attack.

Re:The Future of all Printing

[3ryon]

The primary purpose of the constitution is to protect our constitutional rights.

Ah yes, to understand recursion one must first understand recursion.

Just Behind The Bookmobile

[miracle69]

Will be the FBI tail who will interview the librarians at every stop and obtain full records of what everyone read.

Perhaps the Supreme Court should look at that as well...

Re:public domain software

[Rayonic]

If Windows 3.1 was being enjoyed by any substantial number of people, Microsoft would still support it

Windows 3.1 was never enjoyed by any substantial number of people.

Re:I don't need to eat after I'm dead & soluti

[Zordak]

Hey, that sounds like the a great plot for a novel... Oh, wait. Nevermind.