Having read all these posts, I can certainly understand the frustrations expressed when we don't have access to the entire collection.
Imagine my continuing frustration at all the services that produce .brf or Daisy or audio books for the blind - but do not make them available for the physically disabled. .Brf books and Daisy books both can be easily translated into something that someone like me can read. But I have to go whistle for any reading material if I ask for access through the various organizations that are set up to provide books in an alternative format.
The only affordable services available to me are those through NLS and Bookshare, because I'm not blind (Baen books is an exception to this). Can I pay for alternative format books through the organizations that scan books for the blind? Sometimes - but because I'm not blind I don't have any funding available to me to help me get them, except out of my own pocket. There aren't any laws or organizations set up that I've found to assist the non-blind physically disabled get affordable access to reading materials, outside of NLS.
Bookshare is the only organization that scans textbooks for a qualified physically disabled individual like myself that I've been able to find and can afford.
I can understand Jim's fighting for the NIMAC books and wanting them even without being able to negotiate full access for all members to the NIMAC books. I don't think Bookshare is ignoring our needs. Instead, I'm looking at getting the NIMAC books in the collection at all as a toe in the door, just as Bookshare getting off the ground in the way it has in breaking down the door that denied access to so many reading materials.
Maybe I'm just an optimist - and I'm seeing the NIMAC books entering the collection, even restricted as they are, as a glass half full. smile.
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