[bookshare-discuss] Re: books we need as part of the bookshare collection
- From: "Monica Willyard" <rhyami@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 28 Dec 2008 18:21:07 -0500
Elizabeth, I'm glad you brought this up. This is something we're good
at working out, and our community may have some good ideas for
changing the situation. Maybe some of our members who don't volunteer
can see some creative ideas we're missing. Maybe someone can help me
see my reaction differently too
I agree that the Bookshare collection has its weak spots and thin
areas. Part of that is because, until last year, Bookshare depended
almost exclusively on volunteers to procure, scan, submit, and
proofread books. That's generally a good thing because we've been able
to shape the collection by what we find interesting. However, there
are areas where volunteers have shown little interest, or at least not
enough interest that they took direct action. This means that some
members aren't getting their needs met completely. In addition to what
you've described, our gardening section is pretty puny, and our
collection doesn't contain many books about cars, boating, and racing.
Yet we have a rapidly expanding group of users who are fully sighted
and who can drive, take pictures, paint, and create videos. They just
need Bookshare to help them read. We have very little content in the
subjects I've mentioned to offer these members right now. We also have
relatively few travel books or books about farming, homeschooling,
scrapbooking, making jewelry, and living or camping in the wilderness.
We as a community are pretty good at solving problems like this
together. It's one of our strengths. Could we discuss some solutions
and ways to overcome some of the obstacles in our path? Actually, do
we all have the same obstacles to overcome? If not, helping each other
find ways to work more effectively may help us overcome our own
obstacles.
For example, money and then time are my bottlenecks. I don't think I'm
alone here. I might be though. I have a mostly fixed income and don't
have a lot of cash. I'm pretty picky about which books I buy since the
costs can add up quickly. Even Paperback Swap requires some decent
money over time. So I'm not as motivated to buy books about things
that don't interest me or that I can't do like drawing cartoons. There
are still so many books on my own personal wish list that I want to
read, and the cash goes there. Some of these subjects will be
well-represented at my library, and that's a good alternative. The
more esoteric books like the ones about communes aren't. So money does
become a major issue there.
My other bottleneck is time. Not the scanning time because I can
multitask there. It's the cleanup process that gets me. I could handle
doing rank spelling and a page count on books that don't interest me.
I'm not as motivated to read through a book that doesn't interest me
though. It would feel like when my mom made me eat my vegetables as a
kid, so I'm not likely to get it done on a grand scale. This is
especially true when I'm working at both of my jobs and just want to
come home and read for fun.
Both of these bottlenecks seem immovable. They aren't though. Some
volunteers only have the time constraint. They might choose to hire a
teenager or college student to scan some books for them. They may
purchase books from the wish list and have Bookshare or a fellow
volunteer scan them. We may have some volunteers with a scanner that
has a document feeder who might be willing to run books through it and
put them in the collection. If money is the main obstacle while time
isn't, a volunteer might agree to have books mailed to him/her to be
scanned. We may have some volunteers who live near larger library
systems or university libraries that have more of the esoteric books.
They might be persuaded to get and scan one or two of the books if
they knew someone would validate the books once they're scanned.
Subscribing to a service like BooksFree may be a more economical way
to get books to scan. It works like Netflix only with books instead of
movies.
These are just a few of my ideas. I'm sure you all have more and
better suggestions to offer. I'd really like to hear them. (smile)
On 12/28/08, E. <thoth93@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> We also are missing several books by A. Rand including volumes of her
> letters.
>
> E.
>
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--
Monica Willyard
Visit my blog at http://www.scannersguild.com
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