This discussion helps explain why specificity is essential. Without access to
the source a quote a great deal of time is consumed asking for clarification
and, when that is not forthcoming, speculating out of context.
The link to the relevant Chapter of the manual is below:
http://tinyurl.com/26r4ht5
The relevant subsection is "c. Cannot be proprietary digital books"
Here reference to "Digital books from other accessible book providers..." means the actual files from a publisher or other library such as from "such as an RFB&D digital book or a Library of Congress (NLS) Web-Braille book." These actual files cannot be submitted to be entered into the Bookshare library. "In other words, a book must be scanned by the submitter in order for it to be acceptable by Bookshare."
This does not mean that a scanned copy of a physical version of the of a
particular title cannot be added to the Bookshare library if that title shows
up in another digital library. Some who have commented seem concerned that
there might be some restriction on digital books being limited to only one
library at a time. There is no such restriction. Think of a physical library as
the example. Saint Louis public library can have the same titles as Little Rock
but you would get an overdue notice if you tried to return one library's book
in the other state!
It may be helpful to further clarify in light of the separate running question
on .PDF files.
Yes, Jim and Betsy indicated in the letter below that Bookshare has need for volunteers to work with a backlog of publisher-supplied .PDF files. We are working with Collection Development to establish the policy, processes, and training materials for this future opportunity.
Note that working in the future with .PDF files supplied by the publisher directly
to Bookshare will not change the prohibition on volunteers attempting to submit
commercially available e-books, digital books received from other providers such
as an RFB&D digital book or a Library of Congress (NLS) Web-Braille book, or
digital books provided to a student by their school which the school received in
digital format from a publisher.
Clearer nowr?
Scott Rains
Benetech Fellow, Bookshare Volunteer Department
________________________________________
Sent: Monday, August 09, 2010 11:32 AM
To:
bks_announce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Dear Bookshare Volunteers,
We wanted to give you some thoughts on the critical importance of volunteers to Bookshare and its mission of getting everybody in the world with a print disability access to the books they need for education, employment and full inclusion in society. Although there’s been a lot of change in Bookshare, one thing that won’t change is our need for volunteers that share our dedication to that mission.
Bookshare is the first library for people with print disabilities built primarily by people with print disabilities (as well as book-lovers of all types!). Our credo has been that if someone thought a book was worth scanning, we thought it was worth sharing. We knew that people with disabilities had few choices for accessible materials, and that scanning was a frustrating and slow process.
The volunteers built Bookshare into a potent force for equality: we’ve revolutionized a field that was falling far short of meeting the goal of equality when it comes to access to the printed word. And you’ve worked with us to revolutionize the quality of our scanned books through meticulous proofreading. Thanks to partnerships with over 60 publishers (especially a handful of huge trade publishers), we have now been able to add thousands of new titles to Bookshare electronically, delighting our users. Scott and Pavi have shared with us, and our management team, some of the negative impacts this has had on the morale of some of our volunteers. This is especially true when a publisher-supplied version of a title displaces a volunteer-supplied version of that same title.
We know some people feel like that’s not respectful of their volunteer time, or that somehow
their volunteer time was wasted. I hope you realize that it has been the potent force of our
volunteers creating Bookshare that has brought so many modern publishers to the table, since we can
tell them that we already can scan all of their books, but providing it electronically will save us
time and the cost of buying a book, chopping it, scanning it and proofreading it. The two things
they want in return from us is to publicize their social responsibility and replace our scanned
versions with the version they supply. The replacement issue is pretty much a standard requirement:
publishers want to be assured of the quality of their books we’re distributing. For the
publishers it’s built into the publishing culture, they do believe their original product is
superior and that this requirement implements their contractual responsibilities to the authors,
even though most readers wil
oncur that these are also not perfect. While there are exceptions, the value of having 15-20,000 publisher supplied books over a year to our users is incredibly high.
These publisher partnerships are a terrific way to help advance our mission, in terms of quality, quantity and uniquely, reach outside the United States. But, they are not going to replace our need for volunteers. We have a long way to go to deliver equal access to our users, and the market is going to fail to fill these needs for the foreseeable future (even as we applaud the recent accessibility work of Amazon, Apple and Google).
Let me give you some ideas of the gaps that still exist:
· Older books, specialty books, or simply books that aren’t in the top 5% of sales during the years since 2000. While it makes sense for us to invest the effort of the amazing Robin Seaman, our Publisher Liaison, and our engineering team to support a publisher who can give us 4,000 titles at once, there aren’t very many more of those big name publishers, but there are over 25,000 publishers.
· Proofing PDF files. The bulk of publishers in the U.S., and almost all
publishers in the developing world, don’t have the modern XML capabilities of the
major trade publishers. We are getting tons of PDF books from these publishers, which need
volunteer effort to convert into accessible form.
· The international challenge: new titles, new publishers, new languages
and new communities of Bookshare volunteers in other countries who would benefit
from mentoring. Americans have Bookshare, but the average person with a print
disability has nothing. We have so much more to do globally!
· Proofing textbooks. The textbook industry is way behind the technology
curve and Carrie is sitting on stacks of hardcopy textbooks sent in by teachers from
around the country.
· Metadata. Even if we have something, it only helps if the person
looking for it finds it. We can use significant volunteer help cleaning up the
information about our information.
· Quality improvements. Improving quality on older, lower quality books.
· Image description. A huge challenge that our field has barely begun to
scratch the surface of. Our publisher contracts do allow us to add them to the
publisher-supplied books and we recently received a major award over five years
from the Department of Ed for the DIAGRAM Center, to research and then develop
technology to reduce the cost of doing image descriptions. The centerpiece is
developing tools for better and faster volunteer image description. Stay tuned!
The list goes on. While the need for volunteer work on major trade books of the last five years is going down as these come in directly from publishers, these other needs are acute.
Our responsibility is to get better at communicating with volunteers about our needs, and about what’s going to be happening. Our technology roadmap has numerous improvements planned around improving visibility on these issues so that you can avoid doing those books that are likely to come in directly in from the publisher. But, there are and will be thousands of opportunities for volunteer tasks that are unlikely to ever be done any other way than through volunteer efforts. We really want to create systems where having volunteer work displaced quickly by publisher supplied content is a rarity.
We hope you’ll find personally rewarding volunteer opportunities now, and in the future, with
Benetech. For those of you who aren’t excited about the changes, we understand. But, please be
100% clear: Bookshare volunteers have been the primary force for revolutionary change in accessibility of
books. There are many thousands of students and adults with disabilities that have far greater access to
the printed word thanks to your past efforts. But, the revolution is far from finished: we’re
serving 100,000 people today and there are over 100,000,000 who need Bookshare on the planet. We hope
you’ll continue to volunteer your time in helping realize the vision we all share of equal access
for everyone who needs it!
Jim Fruchterman & Betsy Beaumon
************************
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Candice Attrill [candicat87@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Saturday, August 14, 2010 5:52 PM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Elegible books for bookshare
I cirtainly hope this is not true for the reasons that Kim
statedabove. What would be defined as accessible? What's accessible to
you or me might not be accessible to every blind person due to
disability. For example there are allot more audio books available
from NLS than braille books, and even the daisy versions of these
books could not be read by a deaf blind person unless they have some
remaining hearing and a loop. RFB and D dispight many arguments also
does not make the text of a book match up with audio so it could be
read on a braille display.
Candice
On 8/14/10, Kim Friedman <kimfri11@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I think there's a lot of audio that deaf-blind people find inaccessible,
hence putting in accessible text copies in Bookshare if the only copies
available in NLS is in audio. Regards, Kim Friedman.
-----Original Message-----
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey
Sent: Saturday, August 14, 2010 9:59 AM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Elegible books for bookshare
That's what I was thinking. It has never been true and I would be interested
in knowing where that guideline was found. I think something must have been
misinterpreted about it. In any case, though, let me add that it might not
be a bad rule to follow. That is, if a book exists in accessible format
elsewhere I think it should be given a lower priority for adding to
Bookshare. Note that I did not say that it should be entirely avoided. It is
a simple matter that it is already in accessible format somewhere and there
are other books that are not in accessible format anywhere. It is those
latter books that should be given priority.
_ _ _
"Those who produce should have, but we know that those who produce the most
- that is, those who work hardest, and at the most difficult and most menial
tasks, have the least." - Eugene V. Debs
The Militant:
http://www.themilitant.com
Pathfinder Press:
http://www.pathfinderpress.com
Granma International:
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/index.html
----- Original Message -----
From: "EVAN REESE" <mentat3@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, August 14, 2010 10:10 AM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Elegible books for bookshare
MessageThis is certainly not true. To the best of my knowledge, it has never
been true.
Evan
----- Original Message -----
From: Andy B.
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Saturday, August 14, 2010 8:37 AM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Elegible books for bookshare
From what the guidelines say, the book can't be in any other "book
accessibility" format at another place like RFB&D, NLS/BARD and so on. Is
this still true? If it is, I fear that a lot of bookshare books need to go
away then.
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