[bksvol-discuss] Re: PDF Files
- From: Cindy Ray <cindyray@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 10:25:29 -0500
I, personally, had not read the article though I received it. Thanks.
Cindy Lou
On Aug 16, 2010, at 9:01 AM, Scott Rains wrote:
> Hi Cindy,
>
> Email is a tough medium to communicate in effectively. Thanks for sticking it
> out!
>
> It sounds like the person who posed the question about PDF read the letter
> from Jim Fruchterman and Betsy Beaumon to all volunteers published here. I
> have reprinted below in case this is what you missed.
>
> You will notice that they do say that we will need volunteers in the future
> to work on PDF files. Details of how that will be done have not been
> determined yet.
>
> Scott Rains
> Benetech Fellow, Bookshare Volunteer Department
> ________________________________________
>
> Sent: Monday, August 09, 2010 11:32 AM
> To: bks_announce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> Dear Bookshare Volunteers,
>
> We wanted to give you some thoughts on the critical importance of volunteers
> to Bookshare and its mission of getting everybody in the world with a print
> disability access to the books they need for education, employment and full
> inclusion in society. Although there’s been a lot of change in Bookshare,
> one thing that won’t change is our need for volunteers that share our
> dedication to that mission.
>
> Bookshare is the first library for people with print disabilities built
> primarily by people with print disabilities (as well as book-lovers of all
> types!). Our credo has been that if someone thought a book was worth
> scanning, we thought it was worth sharing. We knew that people with
> disabilities had few choices for accessible materials, and that scanning was
> a frustrating and slow process.
>
> The volunteers built Bookshare into a potent force for equality: we’ve
> revolutionized a field that was falling far short of meeting the goal of
> equality when it comes to access to the printed word. And you’ve worked with
> us to revolutionize the quality of our scanned books through meticulous
> proofreading. Thanks to partnerships with over 60 publishers (especially a
> handful of huge trade publishers), we have now been able to add thousands of
> new titles to Bookshare electronically, delighting our users. Scott and Pavi
> have shared with us, and our management team, some of the negative impacts
> this has had on the morale of some of our volunteers. This is especially
> true when a publisher-supplied version of a title displaces a
> volunteer-supplied version of that same title.
>
> We know some people feel like that’s not respectful of their volunteer time,
> or that somehow their volunteer time was wasted. I hope you realize that it
> has been the potent force of our volunteers creating Bookshare that has
> brought so many modern publishers to the table, since we can tell them that
> we already can scan all of their books, but providing it electronically will
> save us time and the cost of buying a book, chopping it, scanning it and
> proofreading it. The two things they want in return from us is to publicize
> their social responsibility and replace our scanned versions with the version
> they supply. The replacement issue is pretty much a standard requirement:
> publishers want to be assured of the quality of their books we’re
> distributing. For the publishers it’s built into the publishing culture, they
> do believe their original product is superior and that this requirement
> implements their contractual responsibilities to the authors, even though
> most readers will c
> oncur that these are also not perfect. While there are exceptions, the value
> of having 15-20,000 publisher supplied books over a year to our users is
> incredibly high.
>
> These publisher partnerships are a terrific way to help advance our mission,
> in terms of quality, quantity and uniquely, reach outside the United States.
> But, they are not going to replace our need for volunteers. We have a long
> way to go to deliver equal access to our users, and the market is going to
> fail to fill these needs for the foreseeable future (even as we applaud the
> recent accessibility work of Amazon, Apple and Google).
>
> Let me give you some ideas of the gaps that still exist:
>
> · Older books, specialty books, or simply books that aren’t in the top
> 5% of sales during the years since 2000. While it makes sense for us to
> invest the effort of the amazing Robin Seaman, our Publisher Liaison, and our
> engineering team to support a publisher who can give us 4,000 titles at once,
> there aren’t very many more of those big name publishers, but there are over
> 25,000 publishers.
>
> · Proofing PDF files. The bulk of publishers in the U.S., and almost
> all publishers in the developing world, don’t have the modern XML
> capabilities of the major trade publishers. We are getting tons of PDF books
> from these publishers, which need volunteer effort to convert into accessible
> form.
>
> · The international challenge: new titles, new publishers, new
> languages and new communities of Bookshare volunteers in other countries who
> would benefit from mentoring. Americans have Bookshare, but the average
> person with a print disability has nothing. We have so much more to do
> globally!
>
> · Proofing textbooks. The textbook industry is way behind the
> technology curve and Carrie is sitting on stacks of hardcopy textbooks sent
> in by teachers from around the country.
>
> · Metadata. Even if we have something, it only helps if the person
> looking for it finds it. We can use significant volunteer help cleaning up
> the information about our information.
>
> · Quality improvements. Improving quality on older, lower quality
> books.
>
> · Image description. A huge challenge that our field has barely begun
> to scratch the surface of. Our publisher contracts do allow us to add them
> to the publisher-supplied books and we recently received a major award over
> five years from the Department of Ed for the DIAGRAM Center, to research and
> then develop technology to reduce the cost of doing image descriptions. The
> centerpiece is developing tools for better and faster volunteer image
> description. Stay tuned!
>
> The list goes on. While the need for volunteer work on major trade books of
> the last five years is going down as these come in directly from publishers,
> these other needs are acute.
>
> Our responsibility is to get better at communicating with volunteers about
> our needs, and about what’s going to be happening. Our technology roadmap
> has numerous improvements planned around improving visibility on these issues
> so that you can avoid doing those books that are likely to come in directly
> in from the publisher. But, there are and will be thousands of opportunities
> for volunteer tasks that are unlikely to ever be done any other way than
> through volunteer efforts. We really want to create systems where having
> volunteer work displaced quickly by publisher supplied content is a rarity.
>
> We hope you’ll find personally rewarding volunteer opportunities now, and in
> the future, with Benetech. For those of you who aren’t excited about the
> changes, we understand. But, please be 100% clear: Bookshare volunteers
> have been the primary force for revolutionary change in accessibility of
> books. There are many thousands of students and adults with disabilities
> that have far greater access to the printed word thanks to your past efforts.
> But, the revolution is far from finished: we’re serving 100,000 people today
> and there are over 100,000,000 who need Bookshare on the planet. We hope
> you’ll continue to volunteer your time in helping realize the vision we all
> share of equal access for everyone who needs it!
>
> Jim Fruchterman & Betsy Beaumon
>
> *******
> From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Cindy Ray
> [cindyray@xxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Saturday, August 14, 2010 6:22 PM
> To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: PDF Files
>
> Oh, Arghhhh! There was apparently an article which I never read that
> indicated that some publishers (small ones) would submit their books in pdf
> format and that they would need to be proofread. The person who asked the
> question had read this article. It is apparently an article on why volunteers
> are still an integral part of Bookshare. So this person was wondering how one
> would proofread such a file. I don't guess I completely understood the
> question. Sorry to cause all this trouble, for I know pretty much the rules
> governing volunteering at Bookshare; I just haven't had the time to do it
> much lately.
> Thanks for all your help folks. *smile*
>
> Cindy Lou
>
> On Aug 14, 2010, at 8:10 PM, Monica Willyard wrote:
>
>> Cindy, we don't accept pdf files or files directly from a publisher.
>> All books we submit are supposed to have paragraphs and page breaks.
>> If a publisher wants to donate a book, it needs to go through
>> Bookshare itself. We aren't supposed to submit e-books that we buy
>> somewhere unless we get prior permission from Bookshare staff. From
>> what I understand from Bookshare staff, e-books we buy somewhere
>> don't have the same legal standing as print books.
>>
>> --
>> Monica Willyard
>> Visit my GoodReads book shelf at http://www.goodreads.com/plumlipstick
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>>
>
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