[bksvol-discuss] Re: OT: Braille Harry Potter
- From: "siss52" <siss52@xxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2005 23:43:25 -0500
Well, there is a public relations person for Benetech isn't there?? Why
doesn't that person get Bookshare.org more notice? <smile>
Sue S.
----- Original Message -----
From: "E." <thoth93@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2005 7:10 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: OT: Braille Harry Potter
If that were true, press agents would be out of a job. Bookshare says it
does not hav sufficient grant money and certainly not enough to support
itself out of user fees. A press agent might be able to get us noticed by
publishers, authors, and foundations. Sounded like a good idea to me Cindy.
E.
At 08:02 PM 7/14/2005, you wrote:
>You are our press agents..... There is nothing better than word-of-mouth
>by happy users.
>
>Janice
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Cindy
>Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2005 4:18 PM
>To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: [bksvol-discuss] OT: Braille Harry Potter
>
>I had hope this article, and others like it that I saw
>on google news, would mention bookshare, but it
>didn't. Still it's interesting that NBP is making the
>book available quickly. I think bookshare needs a
>press agent to get similar articles into newspapers.
>
>Cindy
>
>The long wait is over for Harry Potter's blind fans
>By Michael Kunzelman, Associated Press Writer | July
>12, 2005
>
>BOSTON --Like millions of Harry Potter fans, Katherine
>Moss can't wait to get her fingers on a copy of the
>sixth entry in J.K. Rowling's best-selling series.
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>And for once, the 16-year-old blind student won't have
>to wait months longer than her sighted friends to dive
>into "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince."
>The book goes on sale at midnight Friday. A Braille
>edition is due out three days later -- much earlier
>than with previous Harry Potter books, thanks to a new
>arrangement between the publisher, Scholastic Inc.,
>and the National Braille Press in Boston.
>Moss, a student at the Perkins School for the Blind in
>Watertown, doesn't want the book read aloud to her.
>She wants to savor each word of the text at her own
>pace.
>"When I read it in Braille, it takes me a lot longer,"
>she said. "That's a good thing. Usually, I don't want
>it to end. That's how much of a reader I am."
>For the first time, Scholastic provided the National
>Braille Press with an advance copy of the Harry Potter
>book, which is kept under tight wraps.
>For the past two weeks, more than four dozen employees
>at the Boston printing house have been working
>overtime to print a batch of 800 Braille copies of the
>"Half-Blood Prince."
>Tanya Holton, NBP's vice president of development,
>said it usually takes months, if not a year or two,
>for published books to make it into Braille form.
>"This is the only book we have blitzed like this
>before, because readers are clamoring for it," Holton
>said.
>At 1,100 pages, the Braille edition is nearly twice as
>long as the hardcover version. It comes in nine
>volumes, takes up 13 1/2 inches of shelf space and
>weighs about 11 pounds.
>Each Braille book costs $62 to produce, but the
>nonprofit NBP is selling them for $17.99 -- the same
>as Amazon.com, according to Holton. A local lumber
>retailer donated $100,000 to help make up the
>difference.
>"This is not about charity. It's about parity," Holton
>said. "We're not here to make a profit. We're here to
>get books in the hands of children. A blind kid
>deserves the same books as a sighted child."
>A blind reader's options are relatively limited,
>however. Only 500 to 600 new Braille titles are
>published each year -- only about 1 percent of all
>books published, according to Kim Charlson, the
>Perkins School's library director.
>"Braille is such an important skill," said Charlson,
>who is blind. "Nothing compares to a kid being able to
>read for themselves."
>Moss is still waiting for a Braille version of
>Katherine Paterson's "Lyddie," a 1991 book about a
>young girl's struggle to survive poverty in
>19th-century New England.
>"A lot of books aren't available in Braille," she
>said. "I don't like that. I don't like that at all."
>At the Perkins School, the waiting list for the new
>Harry Potter book already has at least two dozen
>names. More than 300 people have pre-ordered the book
>from NBP.
>"It's so important for blind children to have access
>to the same cultural phenomena at the same time as
>their peers," Holton said.
>------
>
>
>
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