If you own a scanner, this message is for you! Let's liven things up a little around here and have some fun doing it. Let's do something we haven't done before. Read to the end of this message to find out what I mean.
Did you know we're getting mighty close to the 50,000 books mark? Can you imagine how good it will feel to celebrate it and tell our friends that we have 50,000 books in our collection? How cool would it be if yours is book number 50,000? What if we can make that happen without turning into zombies who scan 'round the clock?
I've been talking to several Bookshare submitters and have found out that we have something really cool in common. A lot of us scan more books than we actually submit. This is usually because we scan books for ourselves and then keep on scanning more books ahead of what we're actually reading. Some of us have hard drives and memory cards full of scanned books that just need to be cleaned up a bit before submission. It's just a matter of sitting down for a little while to do a spell check and make sure all the pages are there. Yet this seems like more work than just scanning while we do other things.
These books are like buried treasure, hidden in the depths of our hard drives. If we've scanned a certain book to read, it's almost a guarantee that someone else wants to read the book too. Unlike treasure buried in the ground, treasure on a hard drive can be so easily lost by something as common as a power failure.
So let's do something cool, calling it Project Treasure Chest. Let's take a little time during these cold winter months to open our treasure chests to clean up and submit some of the books we already have scanned. In return, you'll get some treasure of your own. Besides knowing that other people are enjoying your books, I want to do something to recognize each person who submits ten excellent scans between today, January 10, and March 30 of this year. To do that, I'm going to do two things. I'm going to make a special web page to honor each of the Project Treasure Chest submitters. On top of that, I'm going to offer 3 prizes out of my own pocket. On may 1, I'm going to ask a Bookshare staff member to draw three names from a hat. Each of these three people will receive a 20 dollar gift certificate from Amazon.
Project Treasure Chest is open to everyone who is a Bookshare volunteer. It doesn't matter whether you're brand new or have been a volunteer for years. All you have to do to be listed on the special web page and become eligible for the Amazon prizes is to submit 10 books that are in excellent condition and email me a list of your submissions. These books must be validated to verify that they are in excellent shape since it is the only way I know of to make sure that people don't just submit fair and incomplete books to win a prize. That is why I'm waiting for several weeks after the cut-off date to get the books into the Bookshare collection. These can be BSO scans of books that need it, books you scanned for yourself, or books from the wish list. The only requirement is that they need to be in excellent condition. Excellent doesn't mean perfect. It does mean clear and legible text. You'll need to email me your list of titles since it's the only way I'll know who is participating and how to get in touch with you. My email address is rhyami@xxxxxxxxx . I'll be working to validate your books, as will many other volunteers.
So will you join me in uncovering our buried treasures? Are you ready to celebrate 50,000 books?
If you're a person who validates instead of scanning, don't worry. I'm going to think of something fun for you too. Since validaters aren't listed on the Bookshare site, it's a lot harder to see who is doing what. That's ok though. I'm not going to leave you folks out. You're too important for that. If you'll help me get the ball rolling here, I promise you we'll do something for validaters soon.
Finally, if you know anyone who volunteers but is not on the Bookshare lists, please pass this along to them. We all win when people take part.
Monica Willyard, who has a treasure chest of her own to share
