Children's Books Online: The Rosetta Project

by David Welch

Check out web link: http://www.childrensbooksonline.org/

Have you ever been digging around in your grandmother's attic or at a garage sale and stumbled across a forgotten antique children's book? Wiping away the dust, maybe you wondered what becomes of such relics when all memories of them become swallowed up in time. Children's Books Online: the Rosetta Project, Inc. is a wonderful resource intended to be a free online library for such antique children's books. The site itself contains scanned pages from hundreds of children's books and is constantly growing. You won't find contemporary selections like Harry Potter in this library, most of these books are almost a hundred years old - providing an incredible resource antique book lovers with titles including "Twas the Night Before Christmas" and "Grimm's Fairy Tales."

The layout of the site is basic, which aids it in being universally comprehensive. The site uses html so it should be easy to navigate for even the least technologically savvy. When a book is selected, all of its pages are displayed as thumbnails making it easy to view any particular page of the book at the start. A very useful feature of this layout is that every page of every book has a distinct URL address, so it can be bookmarked or linked to directly. The books are organized clearly and concisely. They have been divided into groups according to age and reading levels. Also the Rosetta Project has translated many of these stories into a variety of languages. There is a search engine that can find books by a title, date, author, or illustrator but it cannot be used to find books by subject.

Children can use these books to learn to read, study historical subjects, or just enjoy reading about a variety of subjects. But a growing archive of antique children's books appeals to adults as well as children. Teachers and parents may find valuable classroom material here without having to purchase hard copies of the books. Antique collector and sellers will appreciate this site as a valuable resource to identify and view antique books. Art lovers may appreciate this as a collection of vintage art and by allowing art historians to search for the works of classic illustrators. For the historian, the selections serve as a time capsule; each book is a relic of the era in which it was written. Finally, for some, perhaps a flicker of nostalgia may be rekindled by rediscovering a familiar but forgotten classic from distant childhood.

The Rosetta Project intends to translate these as many of these books into as many languages possible. The purpose is to allow children from all over the world to enjoy these stories. However, this can also be used as a tool for those learning foreign languages, whether they are English, Portuguese or Farsi. By comparing translations books written for beginning readers, foreign language learners have a lot of material to sharpen their skills.

There is also a Museum Store that offers additional products. For those without a constant Internet connection, any of the books can be purchased on a CD-Rom or downloaded as an E-Book. There is also a small library of audio books, which can be purchased. And why not donate to the site by buying a t-shirt that displays some of the classic art found in these children's books?

The library is always growing and there are several to contribute to the Rosetta Project other than monetarily. Children's Books Online is always looking to expand its library, so people can donate antique children's books or just scans of the pages. Also, writing translations of existing books in their library into other languages is another way people can help the site.

The Rosetta Project is taking these classic books from out of attics and sharing them with the entire world. Children's Books Online acts as a repository that will keep these delightful antiques from being forgotten.