When that safe list got started it was a list of publishers that simply were not on the unsafe list. It was Jamie in Michigan who started it for, I think, her personal use and then a lot of people thought it would be useful to all of us and so it became one of those various lists that we use. Everyone was asked to report publishers that were not on the unsafe list so that they could be added to the safe list. I can imagine that someone just came across that publisher name and saw that it was not on the unsafe list and so reported it without investigating what kind of books it actually publishes. I reported some of them that way myself, but I don't think that Smash Words was one that I reported. That is probably how it got on that list. As time went on there were fewer and fewer reports to the safe list and I now think it can be allowed to just die. Back when I was reporting publishers to be included on it myself I was not thinking of this, but now that I do I think that the safe list is a never ending project that has no real benefits. Like I said, think of how many publishers there are in the world and think how small some of them are. A lot of those small presses only publish one book. Oftentimes an author decides to self publish and goes ahead and gets an ISBN and hires a printer and bindary and has copies of the book printed up. In a case like that the author is likely to make up a name to list on the copyright page as the publisher and then there may be no more books ever published by that impromptu publisher again. Just how many times has this happened and how many one book publishers are there out there? Then there are other publishers that actually go into business with the intention of being a legitimate publisher with a whole line of books, but fail in the first one or two years. Just how many times has that happened? The point is that there is no way that we are going to compile a complete list of publishers that have not signed an agreement with Bookshare and so there is no point in trying. All we need is the unsafe list. The trouble with that is that publishers tend to have imprints that appear on the copyright page as the publisher and we don't necessarily know what the parent company is. That means that we need a list of not only the unsafe publishers, but we also need a list of all of their imprints. Then if a publisher is not on the list we can assume that it is a safe publisher. Now let me remind you that the word safe is only a relative word in this context. You don't have to pay attention to the list at all. It is simply a matter that if a publisher is on the so-called unsafe list then they might supply a copy of the book you are working on and yours will be replaced in the collection. The trouble is that we cannot predict which of their books will be supplied and a lot of them will not. You might scan a book from an unsafe publisher and it will never be replaced. You might scan a book and it will be replaced sometime in the future. If that does not bother you and you get gratification out of supplying a book until that unpredictable time in the future so that Bookshare patrons can use it until that time then go ahead and scan it. Bear in mind too that you could very well scan a book that is from a safe publisher and then at some time in the future Bookshare may sign the agreement with them and your work will be replaced anyway. So the words safe and unsafe are not absolutes at all.
On 10/18/2012 12:25 AM, Dornetta wrote:
OK, my thought sort of. I thought it was "weird" for them to be on the list but *shrug* who am I to question anything. *smile*Netta Anyway, thanks "Just because you are blind does not mean you lack vision"-Stevie Wonder
