I think anyone on a pubic radio would sound crotchetty. (Pun intended.) "Can a nation be free if it oppresses other nations? It cannot." Vladimir Lenin The Militant: http://www.themilitant.com Pathfinder Press: http://www.pathfinderpress.com Granma International: http://granma.cu/ingles/index.html _ table with 2 columns and 6 rows Subj: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Are volunteers really that important anymore? Date: 8/27/2009 11:28:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time From: rixmix2009@xxxxxxxxx Reply-to: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent from the Internet (Details) table end I think that volunteering at Bookshare has so many valuable aspects to it. And I really agree with what E. has just said. Thanks to you, E., for volunteering. And many thanks to all of you. I am amazed at how much time some of you put into this effort. And I really agree also with Cindy the books we have been scanning and getting into the collection are very important, for their good quality, and for the types of books that are coming in. I view this volunteering as sort of a co-op. Having been a working member for many years at a food co-op, the Bookshare experience reminds me of that. There I would work so many hours in a department that I felt I could best contribute, and I would get discounts on my purchases, and have an extraordinary exchange with other members at the co-op on the products we carried, and and on various health and nutrition things, etc. And with Bookshare, it is very similar. I have learned very much, and it has much fed my hunger for good reading. So Bon Appetit. And I say, keep on volunteering, ye mighty seaworthy crew of word mongers and verbivores. Now, having said that word, verbivore, I feel compelled to tell you how I came upon it. Maybe you have heard Chrysti the Wordsmith on your pubic radio station? Well, Chrysti is our friend and fellow radio companion here in Bozeman and her program is produced at our KGLT studios. Visit her website to learn more at this link: http://wordsmithradio.org/ It is a nice 2-minute ride, and a reminder of things we like to know but did not really maybe know we wanted to know about the words we use so much. Rik James -------------------------------------------------- From: "E." <thoth93@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2009 2:36 AM To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Are volunteers really that important anymore? Roger, I am going to answer this inquiry with the thought it deserves. Let me start by saying I began volunteering in the early days of bookshare. You and I agree on some points. First, bookshare certainly has changed over time. Bookshare received a grant from the Department of Education several years ago and began to work more actively with paid outsourcers and with publishers directly. Some of that came about because of the grant. Some of it came about as bookshare found these to be new ways for the collection to grow. Grow it certainly did. The list which bookshare has just provided which shows what outsourcers are doing and future lists which show what publishers are doing are important links. They help us volunteers avoid duplicating work or avoid spending money when books are somewhere in the pipeline. The lists point up something else though. They point up what volunteers truly can contribute. We can contribute books which bookshare has not given to outsourcers. We can contribute books which publishers may be unwilling to give us themselves. Most importantly, those books will add our personal twists to the collection. Volunteers are the people who actually read bookshare books. We work on books which go into the general collection and read books for pleasure which exist in the collection. So volunteers are in a unique position to provide feedback about the system. How well is the scanning and proofing being done? How well does the braille translator work? All kinds of necessary feedback simply will be lost if there are no more volunteers. Our roles may change as bookshare evolves. Those roles have already changed in the over seven years I have been a volunteer. Together staff, volunteers and bookshare will keep each other honest and growing. We have created something amazing here. So much better than reading books on seven inch open tape reels like I did thirty years ago. E. Elizabeth To unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx put the word 'unsubscribe' by itself in the subject line. To get a list of available commands, put the word 'help' by itself in the subject line. To unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx put the word 'unsubscribe' by itself in the subject line. To get a list of available commands, put the word 'help' by itself in the subject line.