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.
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.
__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version
of virus signature database 5367 (20100814) __________
The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.
http://www.eset.com
__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version
of virus signature database 5367 (20100814) __________
The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.
http://www.eset.com
__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version
of virus signature database 5367 (20100814) __________
The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.
http://www.eset.com
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.
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.
