[bksvol-discuss] Oct 2. Phone Chat Notes
- From: Madeleine Linares <Madeleinel@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2012 18:21:12 +0000
Hi everyone,
So sorry it has taken me so long to write this up! I've also attached it as a
word doc. As always, please email me with thoughts, questions, and/or concerns
(madeleinel@xxxxxxxxxxxx).
Volunteer Phone Chat October 2nd 2012
Who's here (I hope I wrote everyone down. I didn't get a chance to do a roll
call at the end): Lissi, Evan, Valerie, Courtney S., Ann P., Judy S., Kellie,
Roger, Marilyn
On staff: Alisa (Volunteer Program Manager), Madeleine (Volunteer Coordinator)
Agenda:
1. Renewal link issues. We've been hearing the complaints. We'll let you
know what we've found out from engineering:
We have emailed people from engineering and are (still) waiting to hear back.
I'll update as soon as I know more. Everyone discussed having a constant
renewal link as something that everyone seems to want and that we had at one
time. We think that it may have changed when we moved to this website.
Madeleine reminded everyone that she can renew your books should something come
up. Please email her off list if you won't be able to renew a book and she will
be happy to do it for you. If anyone has problems with the renewal link not
letting them renew their book when they receive the email, etc., please email
Madeleine with details and a screen shot if possible. The more specific
information I have, the better!
2. How do we want to handle it when someone has been proofing a book for
a very long time? Sometimes there is a very valid reason (such as a really long
book), but perhaps there should be a notification? Has anyone ever found this
to be a problem?
People mentioned that a friendly reminder would be helpful just to touch base
on the book. If I see that someone has had a book for a very long time, I'll
shoot them a brief email to make sure everyone is doing ok. This is certainly
not meant to rush anyone! It is only meant to be a reminder and check in. There
was also discussion about the amount of credits per book. Some people thought
that it might be nice to base the number of credits on the size and difficulty
of a book. For example, a textbook or 600 page book would be eligible for more
credits than a teen fantasy book. We will discuss this more with staff members
and get back to you all.
3. Wordpress blog update:
We are working on this. It currently exists and we are in the process of
creating various categories or subheadings so as to make it easier to navigate.
The categories that everyone currently thinks would be especially important to
have are: scanning, proofreading, image description, Microsoft Word (and
subcategories for the different years), Kurzweil, Open Book, formatting, AT
tricks, keyboard shortcuts, Bookshare lingo, AT lingo. These may be grouped
into larger categories, but I think this is a good start. If anyone has more
ideas or thoughts on this, please email Madeleine directly.
4. Monitoring the discussion list upon Mayrie's departure:
We had an offer from a volunteer to moderate the list, but instead, for the
moment, we have decided that Madeleine will continue to monitor and moderate
it. We strongly encourage everyone to continue to answer questions, though!
Madeleine can remove people (such as spammers) and will answer questions if
there is a conflict in answers, but for the most part she will leave it up to
everyone else. This is what has been happening for a little while now and we
think that it seems to be working well. All of you on the list have so much
knowledge that it seems silly not to utilize it! As always, any concerns or
questions can be emailed to Madeleine off list.
5. How do people feel about the new Holds policy? Is it working? Are
there enough books without holds available for new people?
People seem fine with how things are going. As always, we want more volunteers
so everyone has more books to choose from but no one seemed to have any
complains about the holds policy. If anyone who was unable to make the meeting
has thoughts, please email Madeleine directly.
6. Greeting program: should this be implemented and would it be helpful?
Perhaps it could serve as a place to mention the mentoring program?
The thought on our end from the staff was utilizing this program as a way for
volunteers to welcome new volunteers in a very general way (so that those who
weren't sure that they were supposed to introduce themselves or who felt left
out would be encouraged and included) and also give out some basic information
to new volunteers. I'm going to write something up and send it to Lissi who has
volunteered to email it out once a week. We'll keep it very short and sweet.
I'll include information about mentoring and explain the holds policy briefly.
7. Other thoughts and comments?
Roger wanted to know about the categories that we have to classify books. This
is actually a big discussion for the staff and we're redoing that list of
categories to hopefully come up with something more similar to those you might
find at a real library. We will share more as soon as we know more.
The general consensus is that people like the meetings and want to continue to
have them once a month.
Best,
Madeleine Linares
Volunteer Coordinator
Bookshare, a Benetech Initiative
650-644-3459
madeleinel@xxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:madeleinel@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
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