Filling Station -- Send us your memory card, and we'll fill it with books.

You can get your books on a memory card rather than CD and DVD.

This offer is meant to help those who don't have a CD drive or who prefer the convenience of a library of books on a memory gadget you can keep in your pocket and connect to a computer wherever you might be.

This could also be helpful for people who have computer-like devices, such as BrailleNote that can handle memory cards and plain text files but do not have disk drives.

The challenge arises from the fact that there are many different kinds of memory cards (compact flash being probably the most popular now, but popularity subject to rapid change) in many different sizes, and that a blank memory card typically costs more -- often far more -- than one of our CDs.

I have a little gadget known as a "SanDisk ImageMate 12-in-1 Reader/Writer" that enables me to load files from my computer to all the current kinds of memory card. But it would be far too expensive for me to buy and hold in inventory all the different kinds that customers might ask for; and frequent trips to the store to buy specific kinds would be too costly; and often potential customers who use such cards all the time are able to buy them in quantity or have found other ways to get them at a better discount than I could; and if I used cards that I bought myself, I would have to charge the customer far too much to make the offer interesting.

Also, it would be difficult to make any kind of a "standard" offer -- with a pre-selected set of books -- because the cards currently come in sizes from 250 Mbytes up to 4 gigs; and I'd expect bigger (more expensive) cards to be available soon.

So this is how it works: 1 -- You send me a blank memory card by snail mail. 2 -- By email and/or by phone you let me know which the CDs or DVDs the contents of which you would like included. If the conversation is over the phone, I can let you know how much space is left, and how much space other selections would take up. 3 -- I then send the card back to you (first class in the US; air mail outside the US).

I can copy files to the following types of memory card:

• CompactFlash Type I/II
• SD
• miniSD
• MultiMedia Card
• MMCplus
• MMCmobile
• RS-MMC
• RS-MMC Dual Voltage
• Memory Stick
• Memory Stick PRO
• Memory Stick Duo
• Memory Stick PRO Duo
• SmartMeida
• xD

Basically, send me a blank memory card (such as Compact Flash -- "CF card"), and I'll fill it with books.

The prices will be same as for the equivalent CDs or DVDs.

If you are interested in such an offer please let me know by email at seltzer@samizdat.com or phone me at 617-469-2269.