[bookshare-discuss] Re: publisher quality books
- From: "liz halperin" <lizzersagain@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 22:54:47 -0800
Scott, I completely agree with you, except for one major point: this is the
first time Bookshare has put out books that are inaccessible by *Bookshare's
own standards.* Engineering is working on it, yes, I truly believe that, but
it will take some serious time as you said, so for now, I still question the
cart before the horse. I know they have their reasons, it has been explained
on both lists, this one and the volunteer lists. Nonetheless, there are a
spate of books swelling the number of books in the collection, but which are
only accessible by various work-arounds. What about the members, over 6,000
I recall, even before the college and k-12 kids got in, who are not on these
lists and not learning the work-arounds? The joy for me of BS is the
instant brf downloads. There won't be brf downloads of the PQ books for a
long time yet. And now various standard equipment for hearing blind people
is requiring more complicated steps too. Suppose a member does not have a
scanning a program such as Kurzweil or OpenBook? I'm not only disgruntled
that a collection I've contributed to for 6 long years is suddenly
publishing books that are not accessible to me, but that all the
work-arounds are not being available to Joe Blow member who is just out
there, paying an annual renewal fee, and happily reading away. Now there are
books sans summaries, sans Bookshare standard access formats, and personally
I'm not too amused. I understand I am not entitled to amusement nor have any
say in how things progress. But I also don't have blind faith when standards
which were quite strict are suddenly tossed out the window and we're told to
be patient and have faith. For how long? I've been waiting 6 long years for
engineers to fix the header and footer stripper program. That's probably
gone back to low priority while publisher quality books picked up the
priority. I'm usually very loyal, and will continue to scan and submit
books, but that does not mean I need to suspend my critical thinking
processes. At the moment, I'm quite cynical about these books and how soon
they will be at Bookshare standards. (Or have the standards just changed? Is
it anarchy?) And what other projects we've been hearing about are going to
low priority in exchange? A complicated (Latin) college text I had requested
was denied as the push is now toward K-12. I'm really not sure what to
believe any more.... I keep plugging away, scanning and submitting, but this
is the first time I can't get brf downloads of books without in-between
steps....
I'm obviously frustrated and disappointed. Each summer I send a letter to
Jim F. and the current Bookshare leaders reminding them of prior summers'
promises of fixing headers and footers and include prior emails about it.
Still ain't happening, still having to do the work arounds which don't
always work. I'm too afraid these publisher quality book issues will be
similar.
Ok Rant Mode off. Shaddup Liz, Bookshare will do what they want. And I will
remain loyal, but skeptical, until I see the promised changes.
Liz in Portland
Liz Halperin
Portland, OR
lizzersagain@xxxxxxxxxxx
-----Original Message-----
From: Scott Blanks [mailto:scottsjb@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Saturday, March 08, 2008 11:06 AM
To: bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bookshare-discuss] publisher qualitty books
HI folks,
I've been watching the discussion of the ups and downs of pq books being
introduced into the Bookshare collection. There have been many frustrations
voiced about the implementation, and most of them quite valid. However, I'd
like to strongly encourage folks have some faith in the Bookshare staff.
I've seen a couple messages or more where people are really teeing off on
the work being done by Bookshare. These types of changes simply don't happen
in the time it takes to scan a novel, or validate a book from step one. We
*need* to realize that there are multiple factors involved in rolling out a
sea change like what is happening at Benetech/Bookshare. I will gladly go
out on a limb and say that Bookshare will resolve most, if not all issues,
as soon as they are capable of doing so. And no, I know nothing to support
my assertion, but I base my statement on the past six years of Bookshare's
exemplary work to make it possible for so many of us to read many thousands
of titles.
Scott
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