Category: Content on Paperight

A snapshot of content on Paperight: December 2012

In the first phase of Paperight’s development, the broad goal of the Paperight content team was to have 1000 products listed on Paperight in four months (November 2011-February 2012). This was achieved on the Paperight alpha site, you can see that breakdown of content here. When the full-featured Paperight website went live in May 2012, its technical requirements meant this catalogue had to be rebuilt almost from scratch. The content on Paperight has also shifted from primarily Creative Commons licensed and public domain works, to include titles from a total of 36 publishers. We continue to have a large base of CC-licensed and public domain material, but this has been supplemented by contemporary African and South African fiction, academic work, study-guides, and teachers resources.

Research & analysis of listed titles

The graph below roughly illustrates, based on year of publication, the composition of the current Paperight database in comparison to that of the database in February 2012. The comparison illustrates that we currently have a much larger proportion of contemporary, licensed titles than we did before. Due to the fact that some of our earlier public domain texts have not yet been processed for upload on the site, there has been a drop in the amount of public domain titles listed on the site.

Since February we have nearly doubled our acquired content, and have increased the amount of documents that have been processed for automatic download tenfold. Currently there are 1146 processed documents listed on the site, with 771 documents awaiting processing (and which will be completed when automated doc-processing has been developed).

Content composition

The composition of listed titles is further demonstrated by the following data visualisations, which provide an overview of the percentage of books per genre. The second and third charts show the composition of sub-genres within two of the primary genres of ‘fiction’ and ‘non-fiction’.

Themes identified within listed content

The books on the Paperight website encompass a wide range of themes in the social sciences, both of an academic and general nature. These mostly include books on politics (political parties and parliamentary politics), history, civil society and  mass media. There is a also a strong collection of African biographies and memoirs, African poetry and plays, African literary criticism and a broad collection of books on conservation and environmental issues. There is also an incredible collection of books on higher education, especially in Africa. Some of the books in our collection (especially books on African philosophy, the biographies and seminal works by past and contemporary African intellectuals) are not as easily available anywhere else in South Africa as they are on Paperight.  There are also books on cellphone culture in Africa,  African popular culture, books on gender and a wide-range of popular and literary fiction.

Lifesaving medical manuals for healthcare professionals

EBW Healthcare publishes an innovative series of distance-learning books for healthcare professionals, developed by the Perinatal Education Trust, Eduhealthcare, the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation and the Desmond Tutu TB Centre, with contributions from numerous experts.

Their aim is to provide appropriate, affordable and up-to-date learning material for healthcare workers in under-resourced areas, so that they can manage their own continuing education courses which will enable them to learn, practise and deliver skilful, efficient patient care. Health practitioners and facilitators from around Africa say that wherever EBW Healthcare’s books are studied, the quality of care improves, so much so that many of the educational methods developed by the Perinatal Education Trust are now being adopted by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Paperight is proud to have these lifesaving manuals – covering topics as diverse as perinatal care, birth defects, and adult TB care – in our print-on-demand library. To find a list of all healthcare manuals published by EBW Healthcare, simply click here.

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If you’re a Paperight outlet and would like a personalised version of this poster – or if you would like to give us suggestions for and comments on our outlet posters – please don’t hesitate to mail us at team@paperight.com.

To sign up to our fortnightly outlet newsletter – featuring the best Paperight content and news, as well as posters for your outlet – simply sign up by clicking here!

Call for Submissions: Paperight Young Writers Anthology 2013

2013-anthology-poster-english_20130123We’re putting together the first Paperight Young Writers Anthology. High school learners from around South Africa are invited to submit their original short stories, essays, poetry and black-and-white illustrations for inclusion in this ground-breaking new collection.

Continue reading Call for Submissions: Paperight Young Writers Anthology 2013

Need matric exam papers?

Get matric past papers from any Paperight outlet!

Do you need to prepare for your matric exams but can’t find past papers to help you study? You can now print out and buy matric exam packs from your nearest copy shop.

We have over 200 locations throughout South Africa, and you can find your nearest outlet by clicking here and using our interactive outlet map.

If you don’t have a Paperight outlet near you, you can ask your nearest copy shop to sign up, or ask your school to do it for you. In fact, any organisation can use Paperight to print out books, exam packs and other documents from our online library – all they need is a printer and an internet connection.

The only thing you have to pay for matric exam packs at your local copy shop is printing costs. Plus, you don’t even have to print out everything – just print out what you need!

If you’d like to find a list of all the exam packs that you can print out at Paperight outlets, you can find one for language subjects here, and one for non-language subjects here. (We have them all!)

If you need any help or advice about how to get hold of our matric exam packs, you’re welcome to email us on team@paperight.com.

Good luck, and happy studying!

Project H is here!

(Click here to access a .pdf of this poster that you can print out!)

Looking for something to break the exam stress, the holiday boredom, or just need something exciting to read?

Project H is South Africa’s first murder mystery graphic novel, and it’s available to buy from Paperight. Lovingly illustrated and expertly written, Brandon Carsten’s debut book is a bonafide thriller. The story of a Capetonian cop made redundant in a utopian South Africa – a reformed country seemingly without crime, poverty or belief in God – who is forced to investigate his wife’s murder and the truth behind a nationwide revolution, Brandon Carsten’s debut book is set to be a hit for comic enthusiasts and newcomers alike.

If you’re a Paperight outlet and would like a personalised version of this poster – or if you would like to give us suggestions for and comments on our outlet posters – please don’t hesitate to mail us at team@paperight.com.

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To sign up to our fortnightly outlet newsletter – featuring the best Paperight content and news, as well as posters for your outlet – simply sign up by clicking here!

Need posters for your business? We’ll design them for you!

This week, Paperight hasn’t designed a poster for all of its outlets. “But why?”

Don’t worry, we haven’t abandoned you. We’re taking a break from making Paperight-branded posters to offer you a complimentary service. For the next two weeks (or perhaps even longer – who knows?), we’ll redesign and rebrand our posters to go with your business’ branding: your colours, your logo, your details.

We’ve found that, by working with some of South Africa’s biggest and most innovative copy chains, that your brand is the most important factor in getting customers through your doors and getting them to print more in your shop. We’ve seen rebranded posters and adverts help bring in thousands of rands’ worth of custom to some of our most active copy shops. But many outlets don’t have the in-house advertising and design skills to make this a feasable advertising strategy.

So, how’s about we make a deal you can’t refuse? Our content posters, plus your business’ branding, for free.* It’s the least we could do for you, because, without our outlets, we can’t succeed in our mission of putting every book within walking distance of every home.

If you want a rebranded poster for free, or if you just want more information, simply mail team@paperight.com, and we’ll hook you up.

*That is, of course, only if you are a registered Paperight outlet or rightsholder.

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To sign up to our fortnightly outlet newsletter – featuring the best Paperight content and news, as well as (usually) posters for your outlet  – simply click here!

Exam troubles? We’ve got your back!

(Click here to access an PDF that you can print out up to A2 size and use in whichever way you want. Oh, and this week we’ve also got one in isiXhosa! Click here to get it.)

How soon is it until matric finals start again? Pretty soon, right?

We’ve been having a lot of requests for posters to help outlets advertise our wonderful matric exam packs in the run-up to this year’s finals, so we thought we’d send out one that any outlet can use to advertise in-store or out. (The gap at the bottom is for your logo/address/whatever you want.) This poster is optimised to be printed at A2 size, but, of course, can be printed at A3, A4, A5 or anything else you wish.

Oh, and in case you’re looking for them, click here for full lists of our comprehensive packs of matric past papers for NSC languages and NSC non-languages.

(If you’d like to see any additions or changes to outlet posters in the future, why not e-mail us at team@paperight.com?)

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To sign up to our fortnightly outlet newsletter – featuring the best Paperight content and news, as well as posters for your outlet – simply sign up by clicking here!

Featured on Paperight: two-dozen gorgeous tomes from Modjaji Books (and an Ingrid Jonker Prize-winner)

What’s up? Here’s a new poster to stick up in your Paperight outlet. (Click here for access to a PDF that you can print out.)

As part of the deal we made with the fantastic African Books Collective earlier this year, we have secured a specially-curated handful of novels, short stories and collections of poetry from esteemed independent South African publisher Modjaji Books.

Modjaji’s books are ones that will, at varying times: make you chuckle under your breath; make you sob under your quilt at night; keep your page-turning index finger very well exercised; make you think, “Hm, that’s very interesting, indeed. I never thought of it like that before.” They are books searingly South African in genesis that also cover themes and emotions universal in spirit. Emotionally in-tune and beautifully wrought.

To sweeten the deal, we’re also featuring a trio of Modjaji’s famed collections of local poetry, one of which was awarded this year’s Ingrid Jonker Prize for English Poetry last week: missing, Bev Rycroft’s deft and confident journey through the trials of illness, is a debut collection to be savoured.

For a full list of Modjaji’s gorgeous books on Paperight, simply click here.

Paperight book reviews: The Art of War – Sun Tzu

Some books are great. Some books aren’t so great. Some books, like Sun Tzu’s Art of War, are well-established classics for reasons that some people can’t quite understand. Yazeed Peters, our Outlets Development Manager, is one of those people. For this month’s Paperight staff book review, Yazeed reflects on paintball, collaborative Chinese authorship and about why people would ever think so highly of a millenniums-old general’s advice.

I gasp for air, my lungs struggling to suck in enough oxygen to feed my racing heart. I have almost completed my mission. Many men have fallen in this brave journey through this deadly forest. I scan the area carefully for the enemy before attempting my final dash towards victory. The coast is clear. I jump over the rocks and race towards safety but then, I hear it, that harrowing sound of gunfire. I feel the burning pain in the side of my neck. I’ve been hit. So close. But not close enough to win this game of paintball…

I love paintball. It’s more exciting than any video game would ever be. Victory is the ultimate glory for the avid paintballer, and as any paintballer would tell you, the better strategy often leads to victory. As a somewhat competitive person I decided that I need to find myself The Art of War, written by Chinese general Sun Tzu centuries ago, to improve my chances of victory next time I hit the battlefield. I have never read any review on it but I knew that there’s an action movie which carries the same title. Surely, that proved that The Art of War must be a very good book.

I hurried down to The Office Crew, my closest Paperight registered copy shop, to purchase myself a copy. To my delight,, the Paperight Edition only cost me R25 and I found the printing to be beautiful. Even though I had been working at Paperight for a few months, I had never truly appreciated the benefits Paperight could bring to me personally. Buying The Art of War changed all that.

Continue reading Paperight book reviews: The Art of War – Sun Tzu

Big Bug Books now available on Paperight!

Big Bug Books children’s books are now available on Paperight!

Following the adventures of the little cricket Kriekie and the little pink frog Kierie, the Big Bug Books series is a structured approach to teaching English and Afrikaans literacy and life skills, as well as drama and art, to children from the ages of 4 to 11.

The series, developed by Paula Raubenheimer, an occupational therapist specialising in child development, and educationalist Dr. Hannie Menkveld, is compliant with South Africa’s foundation-stage syllabus.

From the Big Bug Books website:

South African children and children universally will identify with the topics as they concentrate on life skills, perceptual skills and problem-solving skills and promote emotional and spiritual growth. Each book has a moral or ethical concept. This can be discussed with the child by a teacher or parent/caregiver. In addition, both the text and bright illustrations should stimulate the development of the child’s imagination and their acting skills. Since the topics tie up with what children learn in schools, the books will encourage both listening and talking skills, as well as reading and writing skills.

There are 105 BBB documents currently on Paperight, including all English books from Levels 0 to 3 and their accompanying teacher’s guides and worksheets. To find them all, simply click here!