[bksvol-discuss] Fw: [bookshare-discuss] Announcement: third annual book drive, call for scanners
- From: "Cindy Ray" <cindyray@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 07:07:15 -0500
I am forwarding this to this list for Tony Baechler.
Cindy Lou
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tony Baechler" <bookshare@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2007 3:13 AM
Subject: [bookshare-discuss] Announcement: third annual book drive,
call for scanners
Hello all. Please feel free to forward this to other appropriate
mailing lists, blogs, etcc. Especially please send this to the
bksvol-discuss list. I do intend to join that list in the next few
days but I wanted to hurry and get this out since it is now August 15
and there is a fairly tight schedule to follow. Finally, please
excuse the rough edges. I'm still working on things and
details. Again, I wanted to get this out for discussion. This might
be a bit long, for that I apologize. There will be several sections
to facilitate easier discussion and questions. If you have any
concerns, comments or questions, feel free to respond on the
bookshare-discuss list or write directly to me. There are different
addresses to write to depending on your question so please read
carefully. For general questions, write to
bookshare@xxxxxxxxxxxxx If you want to volunteer to scan or have a
book request, please hold on a couple days. Eventually you'll write
to bookrequest@xxxxxxxxxxxx but that address isn't up and working
yet. Now, on to the announcements!
I. Third annual book drive
As some of you know, every year Baechler Productions purchases books
to be scanned by Carrie and the in-house Bookshare volunteers and
submitted to Bookshare.org. In the past, all books were purchased
out of our own funds and no donations were requested or
accepted. Also, the books were only sent to Carrie Karnos and the
Bookshare staff. In 2005, a total of twenty-two books were purchased
on old time radio. I know of at least one or two people who joined
Bookshare directly as a result of us making those books available. I
won't mention names, but you know who you are and I'm greatful for
your kind words thanking us for the books and your story of how you
joined. I'm sure there are others who we don't know about and to
them I say a sincere thanks for joining as members and hopefully
becoming volunteers one of these days. In 2006, there was a small
amount of money to work with so only about six books were purchased
and none on old time radio. Among them were a Star Trek book and a
classic Ellery Queen mystery short story collection. No press
release was issued because there was little point, however an
announcement was made to this list last year.
Now, it is August 15, 2007. I am speaking only for myself here but I
want the third annual book drive to be better than ever. I feel that
it can be with your help. Before announcing changes that will happen
this year, I wanted to give a summary of the past. After a great
deal of thought and consideration, Baechler Productions wants to do
things differently. In the past, we didn't accept donations. While
we still do not require donations, we will accept them this year if
there is a book that you want to buy or if you want to pitch in with
others to buy a certain book. In the past, we didn't let anyone but
the Bookshare staff scan books. This year, anyone can scan and we
are actively seeking volunteer scanners. Finally, perhaps the
biggest change of all is that we are going to be totally open. By
that, we mean that in previous years, we didn't allow anyone to post
lists of books we purchased on their sites and were going to shut
such sites down. While we still feel that we should get credit for
what we have done, we are going to openly post lists of our books
here and elsewhere. We are now encouraging anyone with a site or
blog to post entries on what we're doing and what books we
purchase. In fact, we are asking you, the members of Bookshare, to
create your own list of what you want us to buy within funding
limitations. We would like to openly apologize here to Jake
Brownell. Again, while we feel that he could have done things
differently, we realize that he meant well and he is more than
welcome to put lists of our books up in his own structured
formats. That brings us to why we are posting this announcement
openly to this list. We believe that being open is the best policy
and we shouldn't try to keep things from the people who are in the
best position to help us, you the readers, you the members and you
the volunteers.
II. Call for Scanners
From August 15 to September 15, 2007, we are seeking people to scan
books. We will have a required survey which must be filled out. We
don't ask for any personal information and we will not share it with
others but we obviously can't mail books without an address. There
are some optional questions also. Currently, the survey is not up
yet. When it is up hopefully by the end of the week, an announcement
will be posted here and it will be attached. You will need to fill
out that survey and email it to us. We will contact you and go from
there. We are hoping to find about three people to do scanning but
this isn't a hard limit. It depends on how many books each person is
willing to do and how much funding we have. It's impossible to
predict in advance how many books will be purchased. The person
scanning the book will be allowed to keep the printed book when they
are done with it. You may give the book away or join a swap site
like paperback book swap. We will not ask for the book to be
returned unless otherwise noted. Also, the person scanning the book
is responsible for submitting it to Bookshare so you would get the
$2.50 submission credit. We might ask for the .rtf copy but we will
not submit it. We ask that all books are scanned in the .rtf
format. There is not a hard time limit on scanning but we would like
the books scanned fairly soon. We would like to see books start
showing up in mid to late October if possible. If you cannot get a
book scanned by then, please let us know and we will have you mail it
to someone else. Finally, we will ask what state you live in on the
survey. This makes it easier for us to match people geographically
with the book sellers. It makes no sense for us to have a book
mailed from New York to a scanning person in Texas when we could get
that book from a Texas seller.
III. book requests
We will shortly be accepting requests for books to purchase. You
don't need to scan a book in order to request one, but people who are
willing to scan books they request will get priority. In other
words, just because you want a certain book doesn't mean that you
will be obligated to scan that book but if you are willing to scan
it, there is a better chance that your book will be purchased. We
are only interested in classic mystery, science fiction and fantasy
genres at this time. If funding permits, we would like to buy old
time radio books as well but they tend to be more expensive. The
definitive book on "Gunsmoke" is about $75 used and a book on CBS
Radio Mystery Theater is about $43 used. We do not have a hard limit
on what we will spend per book but all books will be bought used. We
are not interested in romance or horror and will not purchase those
types of books. We would like to avoid religion at this time but
would consider buying Christian fiction. Except for old time radio,
we would rather avoid nonfiction in most cases.
You may request books in one of two ways. The best way is to write
directly to the bookshare-discuss list with a CC to
bookrequest@xxxxxxxxxxxxx You should get an automated response from
us. If you don't, send your message again in 24 hours. Sometimes
email delivery can be slow. Make sure to look through your junk
filters and all of your mail folders to ensure that our response
didn't get misfiled. For maximum safety, add both
bookshare@xxxxxxxxxxxx and bookrequest@xxxxxxxxxxxx to your address
book and white lists. By also posting to the bookshare-discuss list,
others can respond and can get books which might not be available to
us. This also avoids duplicated effort. It is frustrating to
someone who is scanning a book only to find that someone else just
submitted it. The second way is to write to us directly at the above
bookrequest@xxxxxxxxxxxx address without posting to the list. If you
know others can't get your book and it falls into the classic mystery
or classic science fiction genres, please feel free to write to us
directly. We will let you know if we can't handle that particular
request. Note that just because a book is requested doesn't mean
that we will or can buy it.
IV. Schedule
This is just a preliminary schedule for now, but we would like to
follow this schedule fairly closely. Obviously things can change at
the last minute and funding issues do arise but this schedule should
be considered official unless revisions are made.
August 15: Public announcement is made.
August 20 to September 15: Call for scanners and book requests. The
book request address will be closed on September 15. We plan to have
the book request address open before August 20 and will post when it
is working.
September 15 to October 1: Books will be purchased and mailed to
people doing scanning. It might take up to a month for all books to
be shipped.
October 1 to November 1: Scanners should be scanning and submitting
books to Bookshare. The November 1 is not a hard deadline but we do
not want months going by before books start showing up.
October 15-November 15: Baechler Productions will work on press
release and post progress reports. Other books will show up on
Bookshare that couldn't be done by November 1.
V> Donations
I would like to stress here that all donations are optional. I am
not going to pressure anyone into giving money. I realize that many
blind people are on a limited income. However, if you want to
donate, you are encouraged to do so. We can accept PayPal or
personal checks. Checks are probably best for now. If you wish to
donate a large amount, we might be able to accept credit card but
that is not our preference. All money will go towards purchasing
books or helping to offset subscription renewal costs. If you want
your donation to only go towards a certain book or genre, let us
know. We will return all unused funds except for credit card
donations.
If more than one person wants to pool their money to jointly purchase
a book, we are happy to do that. We would like to get some books but
they are very expensive. We will leave it up to individuals to make
their own arrangements but once money is pooled, contact us and we
will go about purchasing the book. Money left in the pool will
either be returned or applied to other books. If you want to only
donate a partial amount of a book price, you may. We will hold your
donation until other money comes in. Please don't discuss donations
on the list, write to us directly.
VI. Final words
Before I go, I would just like to thank all of you for putting up
with me for the past few years. I know that I have not been the
easiest person to deal with in the past. This is my attempt to make
up for the past. I would also especially like to thank the person
who has submitted the many fantasy novels with the excellent
synopses. I don't know who you are but it is a pleasure having so
many fantasy novels available with such detailed descriptions. I
would like to join forces with this person as our interests run in
similar lines. I would like to avoid duplication of effort. I am
amazed at how many books this person has submitted, especially
considering their large size.
Watch this space for updated information as final details fall into
place. Again, your suggestions are welcome. Please feel free to
discuss this announcement on the list. I am very behind on my email
so please allow up to a week for me to reply to you. I will
personally try to reply to as much as I can. I would like to find
someone who is willing to scan magazines. There is nothing in the
Bookshare rules against posting magazines except a lack of interest
on the part of the scanners. The in-house staff will not scan
them. I am interested in classic science fiction magazines such as
Analog.
----------
Tony Baechler
Baechler Productions
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