[bksvol-discuss] Re: Baen Books

Hi Donna,
I have been buying books from Baen for a few years and was among those who jumped at the generous offer to make all their e-books free to blind and/or disabled readers. Now as to the website question, The address you want is: 
www.webscription.net
There is a link that takes you to the Read Assist website where you can fill out a form that will allow you to gain access to Baen's electronic books. If you or anyone else has more questions about Baen's Webscription service, let me know and I'll answer them. 

Marcus
----- Original Message ----- From: "Donna Smith" <donnafsmith@xxxxxxxxxxx> 
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, January 05, 2008 5:05 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Baen Books



So I've been poking around on the Bean Books web site, and I have some
questions.

Should it be possible to download any of their books in RTF?
If I purchase a book and download it in RTF from Bean Books, then it's okay 
to submit that RTF file to BookShare?
And finally, is there a joining process for Bean Books? I found their site 
a little confusing as it gives you options to buy hard copies from other
booksellers as well.  I'll play around some more there, but thought if
anyone on this list who has used Bean Books has some tips to share, I'd
appreciate the help.

Donna

-----Original Message-----
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jim@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Saturday, January 05, 2008 1:31 PM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Baen Books

We do have an agreement with Baen Books: we can add any of their titles,
and they've given us global permissions to distribute them to people
with disabilities.  I would encourage our volunteers to add all of the
Baen books they can find.  As has been noted, the late founder Jim Baen
was a strong supporter of alternative access, and we see it as a way of
honoring his commitment.

The question of duplication (with other possible means of obtaining
accessible books) comes up frequently.  Our general answer is that we'd
like to have the book.  There are several reasons for this:
- format problems (what if PDF doesn't work for you?  What if you're
deaf and blind and need Braille?)
- format flexibility (what if you prefer Braille over audio, even though
you can hear? What if seeing and hearing the text at the same time works
better for you?  What if you want to read one way while mobile and
another way while in your home or office?)
- including some Bookshare.org users who are excluded from some sources
(because they have a learning disability, because they are in a
different country)
- series completeness (we're increasingly trying to make entire series
available on Bookshare.org)
- ease of access (what percentage of print disabled people are likely to
know about a given source, such as Baen's deal?)
- cost savings (it's cheaper for us to deal with our users than it is
for publishers to do the same: that's often the motivation for working
with us)
- Lowering the barrier to access by increasing task success (we want the
new and existing user to find the book he or she wants the great
majority of the time, so that they are confident in the future of having
access)

I'm probably forgetting more reasons, but the key one is Bookshare.org
ethic for collection development.  If one person in our community
thought it was worth scanning and validating, we want that book.  That's
why 90% of the Bookshare.org collection is there.  Our low cost to add a
book because of our dedicated volunteer community makes this a
responsible policy, while empowering our readers.

Jim Fruchterman
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