[bksvol-discuss] Re: Tired of turning pages? Make your own scanner

Dear Pratik and everyone,

I'm back and so happy to be among Bookshare users, movers, shakers and 
volunteers again. Two weeks ago my computer crashed for reasons the Dell people 
couldn't name. I'm still clawing my way through the set up of organization the 
way I liked it and though you'll quickly notice I haven't figured out how to 
get the spell check engaged again. I'm grateful to be back in the loop, but I 
sorely regret the loss of my validation files, Daisey and brf books, Volunteer 
tips and computer tips I so carefully collected and used to tackle my ever 
present computer challenges and all of the addresses for individuals in my 
outlook express address book. I also lovingly created files of hundreds of 
poems, quotes, humor, diabetic and regular recipes, knitting patterns and tips, 
interesting links, book announcements and synoopses and reviews from this group 
and from the Reading Club for the Blind, hobbit stories both touching and funny 
by some of the most talented tolkien fan writers and so so much more. It feels 
as if my library burned to a pile of ashe. Today, I bought some kind of 8 gig 
drive thing to connect to my computer once a day to make backups of everything 
I've saved every day. It's also obvious I'm still in serious need of a teacher 
who would teach me for the pittance of $the 20 an hour I can afford.

I haven't been to the Bookshare site yet to see the sorry state of my 
validation projects. Two books were poised for uploading. Either someone else 
has taken them which will be fine as long as they end up in the collection, or 
I'll be starting work on them from square one. 

This post sounds so general you must be wondering why I singled you out in my 
greeting, Pradik. It's because I read your e mail about the automatic scanner 
and I'm here to stand up and admit, as I always do, that I'm so muzzy about 
computers that when I went to the site and read about the scanner, I couldn't 
tell if I was reading about a real piece of equipment or if the entire site is 
humor. At first I was positive it was a joke. With my bad vision, the pictures 
sure didn't help. They looked like pictures of shopping carts, huge 
construction equipment or those ladders they sell in infomercials which can be 
arranged in a score of positions.

So, Pradik, was your post some silliness to brighten our day or the beginning 
of the end for your corpse of volunteers. Yes, we can be a prickly lot, but we 
adore Book share, and those of us who learn to take the quirks of the huge 
system in stride, and ride them out, love our work and the feeling we're 
contributing to the diverse, ever growing Book-share collection.

So, here I am, more scared of computers than ever, but ever so happy to be 
back. I missed Book-share so much and I missed all of you who post to the 
discussion and volunteer lists. I perceive every one of you as a unique, 
likable, personality.

With even more love than usual,

Lissi
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Pratik Patel 
  To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2006 1:26 PM
  Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Tired of turning pages? Make your own scanner


  Hello all,

  The search for the Holy Grail for bookshare volunteers has ended.  Here is a 
perfect solution.  Start the scan, leave, come back, scan done.  New request:  
let's make the validation and submission automatic too!

  http://miniurl.org/00s

  Pratik

  Pratik Patel
  Director, CUNY Assistive technology Services (CATS)
  The City University of New York
  pratik.patel@xxxxxxxxxxxx

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