[bksvol-discuss] advocating for individual titles to publishers and authors
- From: "Dean Martineau" <dean@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2012 10:35:16 -0800
Hello. This question is perhaps directed to Kelly, since he expresses
strong opinions about the need for readers to advocate for publishers and
authors to systematically donate books to the collection rather than
scanning them ourselves. I am running into difficulties with this approach,
and wonder about its universal applicability. Perhaps some training is in
order. Obviously, Kelly is not the only person with knowledge in this area.
As Kelly's idea makes theoretical sense, I sent requests for three books to
Robin Sieman. Two are published by McGraw-Hill and one by W. W. Norton.
Robin's replies contained the following information: Bookshare does not have
relations formalized with either publisher. (I could have known this had I
looked at the list of publishers.) It is well-nigh impossible to get titles
from publishers with whom there is no formal relationship, and very
difficult even when there is a formal relationship. In the case of
McGraw-Hill, the bureaucracy is daunting, and a reorganization is under way,
making locating the right contact unlikely. Finally, Robin doesn't view her
role as one of advocating for particular titles; her time and resources go
to building publisher relationships. She sent my requests off to the
wishlist.
It seems perhaps that the individual advocacy approach, where we of course
do not represent bookshare but urge publishers to turn to it to make books
accessible to us, will work best with smaller publishers.
Now, of course, I can try to reach the authors of my books, but this isn't
proving to be easy. There comes a point where I could have scanned the book
in the time I've spent trying to figure out how to advocate for the powers
that be to add it on their own. In the case of the McGraw-Hill books, I've
perused the book web page and found no e-mail address for the authors. Any
tips on doing this so that it is efficient?
Dean
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