2011-01-26

Jimmy Wales gives away Wikipedia books

It has been the greatest job for PediaPress so far: printing 350 Wikipedia books for the Gottlieb-Duttweiler-Award 2011. Jimmy Wales, this year's laureate, decided to give away Wikipedia books to the invited guests. The book contains a selection of Wikipedia articles around the topic of Duttweiler and Wikipedia and a personal foreword by Wales himself.

Jimmy Wales signs Wikipedia books

The Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute honors Jimmy Wales for “his merits of democratizing the access to knowledge”. With Wikipedia, world's largest Online-Encyclopaedia, the corner stone for free knowledge is set – but only in countries who have internet access. By giving away Wikipedia books, Wales indicates that the free knowledge should also be promoted in countries with little or no internet access.

PediaPress happily agreed to produce 350 hardcover books entitled “Gottlieb Duttweiler Award 2011”. The books have been shipped to Rüschlikon, Switzerland and will be handed out during the ceremony.

Image sources: © Thomas Entzeroth, http://www.entzeroth.ch/


2011-01-10

It's 2011! What Book Best Illustrates This Past Decade?

So we've made it. We've made it through the holidays, and as soon as we looked up again, there was a New Year. A brand new year waiting for us to change everything or nothing, to have fun and work hard, to cry and laugh. In short, a New Year hopefully full of promises for all. At the end of a year, I always end up looking back and trying to remember what was bad, what was good in the year before. What were the memorable moments and the turning points. With 2010 ending, it's not only a year that ends, but the first decade of a century. How time flies...

We looked back at the year 2010 and tried to see what happened at PediaPress. Wow. New people joined the team, the rendering software kept getting better, we implemented hard covers and color content, and of course, the number of Wikipedia articles to choose from to make custom books kept increasing, making PediaPress wiki books ever more interesting. And then we decided to look at the world around us (yes, there is a world beside work!) and wondered what had made this last year, and even this last decade, special.

We all had different ideas and memories of the 10 years past. It's actually quite an interesting exercise to look back and see what people remember, or don't for that matter. So we made a book. Our book is quite an exhaustive one, albeit a simple one - we just put together all the "month articles" from Wikipedia in a book. Well two actually, since so much happened that it only fits in two volumes.

So we've done ours, but we'd like to know what you remember of the last year, and of the last decade. We thought we'd throw a little memory contest out there, to see what you will come up with.

Rules are very simple:

Make your own book about what you think was important in 2010, or in the last decade (2000-2010). Any focus is allowed. It can be "The Craziest Moments of The Last Decade", "The Most Influential People At The Turn Of The Century" or "The Year 2010 Coolest Cars". Whatever was important to you, what you found interesting, what you'd like to keep in your library to show your kids, grand-kids or just your friends in ten years time to say "this is what I remember of those years".

Only one condition: The book can't exceed 800 pages (yes, I know, we've cheated our own rules with our book, but then, we make the rules, so there!) - that is one volume. Make a cool cover, and link it from our Facebook page or in the comments of this blog post [1]. We're curious to see what you will come up with. You have time until the end of the month to show off your best book. We'll choose the coolest books and the coolest get a copy for free.

So go for it, start the book creator and show us what we've missed in this crazy last decade and last year. Ready? Go!

Oh, I almost forgot! HAPPY NEW YEAR! May 2011 bring you lots of pages full of thoughts, facts and free knowledge, as well as health, fun and laughter. :)

[1] Edit made following the comment of Anonymous :)