Hi All,
At the start of 2015, after feeling as frustrated as everyone else, I
created an rtf document that contains everything that was in the
Bookshare's volunteer manual webpages at that time. Anyone who would
like a copy, please email me at: cherryjam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and I will
send it to you as an email attachment.
I hope to go through the website again this January and update that
document with any new information. When and if I do, I'll post about it
here and again make it available to everyone.
For a long time I have toyed around with creating a webpage that
contains all of the information that is posted on this list that hasn't
made it into the manual, sort of an unofficial volunteer FAQ on how to
do scan and proofread. I'm stalled on that because I haven't come up
with a good way to design it so it is easy to navigate without having
everything heaped into one big webpage, and at the same time easy for me
to maintain. I don't want to set it up into subpages that have to be
waded through to find an answer to questions that come up during
volunteering because I hate websites that force you to think the way the
webpage designer did to find answers.
I have no interest in usurping or supplanting Bookshare's official
volunteer manual. Instead, I'm thinking along the lines of a website
that's sort of like the Dummies books, an unofficial "Volunteering for
Dummies" resource. There is a wealth of information within the volunteer
community on how we do this stuff. Having something like that might even
help new volunteers get their feet. I can't imagine trying to step into
scanning or proofreading a book nowadays, with what must feel like an
overwhelming number of things that have to be done to meet Bookshare's
standards. It isn't hard once you've figured it out, but it does have a
big up front learning curve that I suspect discourages many from
volunteering.
Any suggestions or thoughts are gratefully accepted.
Judy s.
Follow me on Twitter at QuackersNCheese
<https://twitter.com/QuackersNCheese>
