Hello Patti,
Welcome to the list.
There's a form you need to fill out in order to volunteer. You can find
it
on Bookshare's website. I think it's under the link on About
Volunteering.
You can either fill out that form or send the same information to
volunteer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Let us know if you have any trouble finding it
or
filling it out.
Once you have been registered as a volunteer, you'll be able to access
the
links which will allow you to work on books which have been submitted to
Bookshare for validation. You'll also receive a message with validation
instructions that should help get you started. After reading the
validation
instructions, you'll probably still have plenty of questions, so feel
free
to ask them since that's what this list is for.
From your message, you obviously have downloaded a book from the
collection
which you feel needs cleaning up. Bookshare doesn't encourage cleaning
up
books already in the collection, although they don't discourage it
either.
It's a matter of where they can best spend their time, and they prefer
not
to have to reprocess books since processing them multiple times is a
waste
of time. However, they do understand that there are some books in the
collection which need updating like the books rated Fair which need to be
rescanned. The best way we as volunteers can help, though, is to make
sure
the books are in good shape before they are added to the collection.
That
way they only have to be processed the one time. The volunteers on this
list are more than happy to help you learn how to do that.
Now, I'm sure you have questions about the book you downloaded. Let us
know
which book you're talking about so someone can help you with it. It may
be
that the book needs to be rescanned, or part of the problem could be as
simple as changing some settings on your Braille Note (or a similar piece
of
equipment) in order to prevent some of the formatting characters from
being
displayed. It also may just be that you're expectations are higher than
what Bookshare expects from a book. If so, you're certainly not the only
one on this list which has high standards. <Smile> Marissa, the
volunteer
coordinator which left in May to attend graduate school, referred to the
volunteers on this list as a bunch of deranged perfectionists which she
had
enjoyed working with.
Again, let us know if you need help signing up to be a volunteer, and
feel
free to ask questions. <Smile>
Gerald
-----Original Message-----
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of patti
Sent: Thursday, September 29, 2005 10:16 AM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] volunteering
Hello everyone: I've just joined this list, and would like to volunteer
validating books. Are there some specific guidelines somewhere to give
instructions? Do you have to fill out any application to volunteer? I
have
a book in mind, one that I downloaded that needs a lot of work; but I'm
not
sure what I'm supposed to delete. There are a lot of extraneous numbers,
for example, not sure what they represent; page numbers, paragraph
markers,
perhaps? I have no clue, but they're annoying; also, all the headers and
footers are there; also very annoying. So I look to you all for your
expertise. I love to read, and read Braille, and I think bookshare is
such
a wonderful thing, and blind people should be reading good quality
material,
too. Too bad I'm not a certified proofreader, because I catch mistakes
all
the time. (grin)
Anyway, thanks for having me.
Patti Cutler
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