The Offline Library
A set of reference material that works with no internet at all, which you load onto your own laptop, Android phone or USB drive. It comes with the Household kit as a step-by-step setup guide, emailed with your order. Everything in it is published under a free licence or is public domain, and we say exactly what is there.
How it works
The content is published as ZIM files by the Kiwix project and read with Kiwix, the free, open-source offline reader used by schools, prisons and expeditions. You install Kiwix, download the files on the list below from the Kiwix library while you have internet, and from then on they open with no connection. Setup takes about an hour of your time; the downloads themselves run on your home internet and, for the full set, take several hours. The guide is public: read the Offline Library setup guide.
Grid Down Home (coming soon) will add the Offline Reader, an 8-inch tablet that comes with this library set up. We are holding that kit until we have sourced a tablet that meets Australian RCM compliance.
Contents (our recommended set)
| Collection | What it is | Approx. size | Licence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia, English, with images | Every English Wikipedia article, text, tables and images (the full "maxi" snapshot) | 120 GB | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
| Simple English Wikipedia | The plain-language edition, useful for children and for reading on a small screen | 3 GB | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
| WikiMed and MDWiki | Wikipedia's medical articles, and Wiki Project Med's medical wiki, with images | 4 GB | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
| Wiktionary, English | Dictionary | 8.5 GB | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
| Wikibooks and Wikiversity, English | Textbooks and course material, including first aid, cooking, electronics and off-grid topics | 6.5 GB | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
| Appropedia and Energypedia | Appropriate technology, water, sanitation and small-scale energy guides | 1.3 GB | CC BY-SA |
| Ready.gov, CDC, FAS military medicine, NHS medicines | Public emergency-preparedness and medical reference publications | 2.2 GB | Public domain / Open Government Licence |
| Post-disaster, water, food, medicine and knots guides (zimgit) | Short practical references packaged for offline use | 0.8 GB | Free licences as stated in each |
| Project Gutenberg, English (science, medicine and technology shelves) | Thousands of public-domain books; the full Gutenberg library is over 200 GB, so the list takes the practical shelves | 31 GB | Public domain |
| Kiwix reader software | Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iPhone/iPad, downloaded free from Kiwix | Small | GNU GPL v3 |
About 175 GB for the full set, so it fits on a 256 GB USB drive or laptop with room to spare. Sizes are from the Kiwix download server in November 2026 and change a little with each new snapshot. Short on space, or loading a phone? The guide lists smaller options, starting with a text-only Wikipedia at about 50 GB or a 13 GB "mini" edition. Our list leaves out iFixit and wikiHow, whose licences do not allow commercial redistribution.
Sharing it around the house
The Kiwix apps include built-in sharing over Wi-Fi. Start it on the laptop or phone that holds the library, and other phones and tablets on the same Wi-Fi, or on that phone's hotspot, read the whole library in their ordinary web browser, with no app and no internet. One device can serve the household.
Licences and attribution
The Offline Library is made up of offline copies of Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikiversity, WikiMed, MDWiki and Appropedia, whose text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0) and is © their respective contributors; Energypedia (CC BY-SA); Project Gutenberg public-domain texts; and public-domain publications of the US Government (Ready.gov, FAS military medicine, CDC) and the UK NHS (Open Government Licence). Images may carry other free licences noted on each page. The files are published by the Kiwix project at library.kiwix.org. The Kiwix reader apps are free software © Kiwix contributors, licensed under the GNU GPL v3, with source code at github.com/kiwix. The same notices and source links are in the setup guide. Dark Day Ready is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation, Kiwix, Project Gutenberg or any government. Content is general reference and is not a substitute for professional medical or emergency advice.
Updating it
New snapshots are free. Connect the device that holds the library to the internet, open Kiwix, and download the newer version of any file from the Kiwix library, then delete the old one. Once or twice a year is plenty.