Hi, Liz. Your questions are good ones, and I'll see if I can answer them all here. To answer your first question, I am a volunteer, not a staff member. I read Jim's blog, watch the Benetech main site, ask questions of the Bookshare staff in email, have talked to the developers in the Friends Of Bookshare chat room, and have some experience with the testing of the type of software Bookshare uses for their database. The announcement about Jake working with engineering was part of a post by John Glass on one of the lists yesterday about who is going to be at CSun for the Bookshare users' group. I had to go back to the list archive to check to see which person posted that yesterday. Jake's position wasn't the main focus of the post and was mentioned as a minor detail. Because I had previously read the job description for his new position, I knew what that announcement meant in practical terms. I didn't think about posting it anywhere since I assumed that John or Lisa re-posted it on the other list and deleted it from my in-box after reading it.
I stressed continuing to write to Bookshare's support address because the staff members in the chat room have asked us to do so when we're having technical problems. Mentioning that Jake is helping with this project can reassure some people that blind people are part of the changes and are going to keep accessibility as a top priority. However, I have seen a few people from the lists flood an individual staff member with mail when that person's name is mentioned as working on upgrades to Bookshare. I did not want anyone to use my post as a reason to send multiple problem reports to Jake's address instead of writing to the support address.
As for the timeline, there are a few things that lead me to believe that it's a fairly realistic timeline. First, John Glass posted to the list that the daisy compatibility issue was a high priority for Bookshare. I doubt that Bookshare will roll out significant new code while most of the staff is away at the convention next week. I say this because they have chosen to hold off in the past, and they are pretty consistent in how they do things. After everyone is back from the convention, we should begin to see small but important bug fixes as we have already seen this week. The usual pattern for these roll-outs is to test them and then release them onto the Bookshare site. From past experience with file conversion issues, I know that it will take a matter of several weeks to do the necessary coding and testing. Some people I have heard from think that Bookshare can fix these issues in a couple of days. In my previous post, I wanted to find a way to adjust the expectations of people. I have found that when people know what to expect, changes come more easily than when people don't know what's happening. When I tell people that this will take some time, they seem to picture it in terms of days and then start worrying when nothing happens in a day or two. Most people don't know what's involved in writing code for a program or web site, and they sometimes underestimate how much time and effort are involved. I wish the folks at Bookshare could just press a couple of buttons and have this fixed. I sincerely hope I'm wrong and that Bookshare has this fixed in a week or two. I just don't think that is realistic given what the developers have described in past discussions of what needs to be done.
As for the brf format of books, I don't think that will happen until they have the daisy working smoothly. That seems to be clear from past posts on the volunteers list. Again, I hope I'm wrong because I know how much that matters to peple here.
I hope this gives you a clearer picture of why I've said what I've said. Monica WillyardTo unsubscribe from this list, send a blank Email to bookshare-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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