Hi. I won't get into an ethical argument here because that is a matter of
personal opinion. However, ethics do not apply to public domain
works. That's why they belong to the public. In this specific case, PG is
giving them away to anyone. That includes bookshare or tons of other
sites. Look at gutenberg.com. That is a pay site selling PG books for I
think $1 each but I haven't looked. To me, that isn't ethical at all, but
it is totally legal. Yes, I agree with you that if someone can use
bookshare, they can just as easily use PG. I also agree that PG should be
given credit as the source. However, the fact of the matter is that very
few people know about PG. Proportionally the blind population knows about
PG more than the public, but that's because they are making books available
completely free in an accessible form. I bet that even among the blind not
many use PG regularly or know much about them. I'm glad to see K1000 and
Open Book including PG search tools. I have addressed this several times
lately, but will do so again since you seem to have misunderstood. The PG
site and structure are now such that no staff would have to do
anything. The new books could be added in a totally automated manner. I
totally agree with you 100% that bookshare staff shouldn't take time away
from scanned books to add public domain ones. Except for a very little
amount of work from the engineers, nothing else would have to be done. It
is incredibly simple to set this up. Take a look at the below site for an
example of what I mean. The new postings are added automatically as they
are posted. You can register if you want, it's free, but you don't have
to. My point is that all they would need to do at bookshare is set up a
public domain category, maybe a separate public domain page, and that's
it. Each book would get its own ID in the bookshare system of course, but
they already do the Braille translation and DAISY conversion on the fly
with automated software. I'm really not asking for as much as it
seems. It's already in an automated format, perfect for adding to library
catalogs. In fact there is a project to donate books to libraries and help
add PG books to those same electronic catalogs. Here's the site:
http://pgdp.net/
I do know what public domain books are. To me there is a difference between unethical and illegal and yet another difference in what page wants done with the books they have done and what I think should be done with them. My point was only to acknowledge the source of the books just as we are acknowledged as submitters of what we scan. Book share staff working on adding those books would still take time away from the more important work of adding books that can not be obtained from any other source, and as I'm sure you know, it is unacceptable for bookshare members to submit those books as if they were their own. Anyone capable of using the bookshare site should be capable of finding and obtaining the public domain books they want from the existing online collections.