[bksvol-discuss] Re: Frustration over missed opportunities for perfection
- From: "Amy Goldring Tajalli" <agoldringtajalli@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 22:47:59 +0000
E and others,
Please, please, please do not mistake sighted readers/members of Bookshare with people who can read printed versions/editions of books. I can scan and validate books and do many that are ones I have sitting on my shelves but in which the print is too small for me to read or the book is too big for me to hold or manage turning the pages even if I can hold them. There are all sorts of reasons why someone cannot use standard printed material.
When I finish writing this letter, I will down-size the print for the convenience of Bookshare readers and "freelist" receivers. Then Booksharians who have readers can have them at whatever size is convenient. I cannot double-check this at a smaller print as I do not have a screen reader that reads mail as I write it. The screen reader that came with my computer [Dell] reads menus & sub-menus only and not the contents of the pages. The only reader I have that re
ads th
e text is in my Kurzweil so I have to move anything I want read has to be moved to that, including the long, long letters from my sister in Cambodia. Other mail I can enlarge if it is not to long. My ability to read even enlarged material is limited by the strain of reading.
I write this not for sympathy any more than members who identify themselves as blind do so for sympathy but to help all of you understand why some members of Bookshare do need and appreciate the service but also want the books to be as accurate and true to what the author wrote as possible. Even the blind can benefit from knowing what they cannot see - that there are pictures with captions and what both are even though the sighted also cannot see the pictures since Bookshare cannot reproduce pictures or sketches. It does help to know that the author felt s/he felt they would be beneficial to the readers. I wish I had read The Si
lmaril
lion before I scanned and validated The Tale of Genji or I would have done a much better and more consistent job with the drawings. Then the copy really would have been excellent.
I am sorry to have gone one so long but there are sighted people who really do need Bookshare quite as much as the blind do.
Amy
omsm
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