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World Reader and Cambridge University Press, South Africa (CUP SA) are working in partnership on e-readers and mobile phones.
This means that anyone with a phone (non-smart phone), in South Africa can now access books and stories, through the World Reader app, hosted on the cloud based mobile application platform BiNu. This enables phones such as Nokia, which are widely used across the continent of Africa, to be used as reading devices.
Wow!!
This is amazing news for literacy and for all who are working to make reading a possibility for everyone across the world.
Niall McNulty, digital publisher at CUP SA, described the development as ‘genius’.
‘A recent report by UNESCO, Reading in the mobile era: A study of mobile reading in developing countries, highlights the importance of using mobile devices to encourage a culture of reading by providing access to books to people who previously had none.’African Branch of Cambridge University Press, 11.8.14
Last year, World Reader had 330,000 monthly active users, reading 650,000 books on mobile phones.
CUP has made 360 e books available via the app, including titles from the Cambridge African Language Library which is a primary reading series.
SmithMartin Partnership are excited at this development and all that it may mean for future readers. We are working with World Reader in a smaller way, through our Books Go Walkabout project to support e-reading and literacy.
The way ahead for future readers!
Sue Martin
Books Go Walkabout, Dolphin Booksellers,
part of SmithMartin Partnership LLP