[bksvol-discuss] Re: Bookshare & PQ submissions
- From: "Paula and James Muysenberg" <outofsightlife@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Bkvol" <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2008 18:35:48 -0500
Paula
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mayrie ReNae" <mrenae@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2008 5:33 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Bookshare & PQ submissions
> Hi Carrie and Pavi,
>
> All that you say here I understand completely. There are, however,
> a couple of cases in which replacing a truly excellent copy of a book
> scanned and validated by conscientious volunteers would be, in my opinion,
> harmful to the Bookshare collection. Children's books that have had
picture
> descriptions and handwritten pages typed in by volunteers, and books of
> poetry in which stanzas have been preserved would be of lower quality from
> the publishers. Obviously copies of childrens' books from the publisher
> will not include picture descriptions. If handwriting is preserved in the
> text of publisher quality books as handwriting, , no screen reader will
read
> that. And finally, poetry that is not protected from having all of its
> stanzas and lines run together is no longer poetry, but prose, which it
was
> not intended to be.
>
> I understand that to keep your contract with publishers, you must
> keep only their copies of books. That can't probably be changed. I do
> think it is important to note that there will be in some few cases, some
> important things lost by removing scanned copies of books from the
Bookshare
> collection. I doubt that there is anything that can be done. But this is
a
> sad situation to me.
>
> I would suggest that members grab any books whose quality might
> suffer in ways that I have noted, and others that I haven't thought of,
that
> they want to read that might be replaced by publisher quality books now
> before they are replaced.
>
> Mayrie
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Pavi Mehta
> Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2008 2:20 PM
> To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Cc: Lisa Friendly
> Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Bookshare & PQ submissions
>
> Hi All,
>
> In the light of recent discussions on the list regarding Publisher quality
> submissions we wanted to send an email to all of you to clarify
Bookshare's
> position on this.
>
> While volunteers continue to be our primary source of books being put into
> the collection, upgrading books already in the collection continues to be
> one of Bookshare's primary goals. Many volunteers have contributed
> thousands of hours in improving books in the collection, and they do a
great
> job! But publishers have resources that allow them to create perfect
copies
> of books. Bookshare would like every single book in the collection to be
> absolutely perfect, and this goal actually might be achievable if we can
> convince publishers to donate e-book versions of their books. Many of the
> Publisher Quality books that we receive are in perfect condition, but not
> quite all at this point, as the technology is evolving in the publishing
> industry.
>
> We need to encourage publishers to donate their books, since eventually
they
> will be donating ONLY perfect books. And wouldn't that be wonderful?
Imagine
> every single book in the collection being perfect! Currently it's a goal,
> but someday, maybe not too far away, it might be possible to achieve it.
> We know that thousands of volunteers have contributed hundreds of
thousands
> of hours of effort in putting books into the collection, and we
acknowledge
> that the vast majority of our books are in excellent condition. But
> upgrading our books will always be a primary goal, and to that end, we
will
> replace current books with publisher quality books. It is also very
> important for us to let our volunteer community know that this replacement
> policy is in fact a requirement of the contracts that we sign with the
> publishing houses.
>
> To the extent possible, we will also inform the volunteers of the books
that
> publishers will be sending us, so as to not duplicate efforts. With every
> batch of books that publishers send us, there are software changes
required
> in our processing of their books, so the books are currently being added
to
> the collection in at a fairly slow trickle. But we are pretty optimistic
> that in the near future, the speed of donating books and processing them
> will increase. Our mandate from the US Department of Education is to put
> 100,000 new books into the collection in 5 years. We have no doubt that we
> will meet that goal, especially with all the Publisher Quality books that
we
> are being given by the forward-thinking publishers who are so generous
with
> their time, efforts and books. Huge thanks to O'Reilly, HarperCollins,
> Scholastic, and other publishing houses and to all of you as we continue
to
> grow the collection as a team.
>
>
> Carrie Karnos and Pavi Mehta
> Bookshare.org
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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