I would agree with your happiness about additions to engineering until I remember they are working on all kinds of new gadgets, interfaces related to social networking sites and so forth. Surely that is not part of the grant. If they are doing those kinds of things instead of focusing on longtime issues I am concerned. Remember that engineering meeting talking about all those novelty engineering projects? Please understand I am concerned rather than angry. Very concerned.
E. At 04:02 PM 3/7/2008, you wrote:
Hi, Elizabeth. You're right that the issues with the stripper have been an ongoing frustration for years. I honestly don't know what the Bookshare timeline for fixing them is. I know that we've been told in the chat room that the stripper is going to be overhauled. I suspect but do not know for certain that Bookshare is still working out the timeline for themselves. The requirements and scope of the grant they got have probably changed their priorities and definitely added some curve balls in their plans.Jim and Lisa have said that they had to switch gears to set up the free student accounts and have been working to put the support structure for that in place. I think you can find that in Jim's presentation from the Friends Of Bookshare room. They have also been focusing on the international scope of Bookshare, a program that they had begun before the grant came through. To me, that's a big project all by itself. Part of fullfilling the terms of the grant is to make publisher quality books a priority now because that quality is important to students and teachers. In the end, we'll benefit from it too, and I like that. Maybe one day we'll get publisher quality cookbooks and other books that are a bear to scan.I know that people would like a more concrete timeline. I would like that too. People on the Bookshare lists are passionate about Bookshare, and that's a good thing.I am encouraged by the addition of several new staff members in several departments including engineering, customer support, marketing, and collection development. Though it isn't a direct answer to our questions, it is a sign to me that Bookshare is serious about moving forward and is committing the time and resources to getting things working well.Monica Willyard E. wrote:Monica I read your note about Jake working with bookshare with interest. I am glad you found that out. I never would have know without your note.Now my comments on the rest of your message regarding time lines.First I agree that these kind of coding changes often take weeks or months to implement rather than days when fixing a web site.However, my previous concerns regard issues which have been around for longer than you have been with bookshare and longer than I have either. They involve the page headers and footers issue, page numbers and the stripper. Such issues have been giving volunteers trouble for over six years. They existed before I began volunteering.__________ NOD32 2930 (20080307) Information __________ This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system. <http://www.eset.com>http://www.eset.com
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