[bksvol-discuss] Re: checking in re. discussion topics

No! No more volunteers; then I can have more books (smile).   Tim



________________________________
 From: Alisa Moore <alisam@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2012 5:48 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] checking in re. discussion topics
 

Hi everyone.  I’ve been following the very active discussions over the weekend, 
and wanted to connect with you all about a few of the topics.
 
Regarding Diagram/Poet, it’s true that the funding is provided for image 
descriptions for textbooks.  That said, we have several volunteers writing 
descriptions for other books, and we can continue to do this as time and 
resources allow.  Unfortunately, most images in Bookshare books are stripped 
out, so our selection is limited for now.  However, I believe that our work 
with Poet/Diagram will further the technology to provide image descriptions in 
all books in the future.   Meanwhile, we were assured by our engineers today 
that they are making it a priority to find a way to preserve images in our 
Bookshare scanned books which is a step in the right direction.
 
Regarding the wish list, we currently have many books in process and are 
placing a special emphasis on getting wish list books into the collection.  
We’ll continue to focus on the list, however, it is true that we have limited 
resources (beyond our small volunteer proofreading team) to proof books (we 
need more proofreading volunteers!).  Although Carrie can technically scan any 
book, funding to pay vendors for  proofreading is prioritized for textbooks.  
I’d love suggestions for growing our proofreading volunteer pool, as that will 
be a big focus for me this year.
 
Regarding the question of, “Why provide image descriptions if most of our 
members are sighted?”…We have thousands of members who are blind and visually 
impaired, and we want books to be accessible to all of our members whenever 
possible.  This is also true for our student members who are blind/VI.  
Textbooks often contain over 1,500 images, and teachers simply don’t have the 
time to describe individual images to their students.  Having images described 
in textbooks allows students to study independently, and reduces the need for 
each teacher to read each image to each student, one at a time.
 
Thanks for all your great questions and dialogue.  
 
Alisa K. Moore
Volunteer Program Manager
Benetech
www.bookshare.org
650-352-0087
 
 
Alisa K. Moore
Volunteer Program Manager
Benetech
www.bookshare.org
650-352-0087

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