This policy is a giant step backwards for those of us who specifically make arrangements so that certain types of difficult to scan and proofread books are held for us so they can get the special attention necessary to make sure they end up in the collection at the highest quality, not because we're "hoarders."
Many volunteers specifically ask me to proofread books for them because the books have special problems with footnotes, graphs, weird formatting that indicates something to the sighted reader that needs to be someone conveyed to our blind readers, charts etc. that are special circumstances that can only be handled by an experienced, careful, sighted volunteer like several of us who are members and volunteers both, but happen to be sighted. I don't have any control over when other volunteers submit such books for proofreading. Scanners try to remember to ask if I have another book already waiting, but sometimes they forget.
I'm proofreading a book right now, for example, that is over 700 pages long, took the scanner several months to scan, is full of much of the above, and the scanner absolutely wants done by me so that all of those things can be managed.
I also have several books that I specifically bought because I want to see them in the collection so they can complete series, for example, or are out of print and on a certain subject, so I bought them and sent them to other volunteers who are kind enough to scan them. I don't want them proofread by a random volunteer, given that I've tried that and ended up with too many that were disappointing quality because the proofreader eliminated all the formatting or couldn't determine that there is formatting that is messed up and needs to be fixed, or stripped out all the footnote numbers, or eliminated tables that were critical to the material in the book because they came through oddly from the scanning.
Then I have yet another book that another volunteer really wants to see in the collection that I'm proofreading because it's a specialized book on horse genetics and behavior traits, and she knows that I, like her, have an extensive background at the national level in horse training and showing, and am a hobbyist in horse genetics. When these books go to the general queue without a hold much of the material in the book gets garbled by a proofers spellchecker because unless you have that background you don't know that a longe line isn't a lounge and the spellchecker is going to "fix it" so that it's wrong.
I could go on and on with examples--these are just what I have sitting in my queue today!
Does it really benefit the members who are going to read these books to have a hold removed from a book like that if I have two other books with a "hold for" in my name in the checkout queue?
Honestly, folks, this just seems both punitive and rife with the potential to decrease quality because it totally ignores these common kinds of situations, instead of fixing the problem of not enough books for volunteers to proofread.
Judy s. On 7/24/2012 6:26 PM, Madeleine Linares wrote:
Hi Volunteers, We are really excited because we have seen an increase in new volunteers! Due to feedback from them, we are reducing the number of holds a volunteer can have in the checkout queue at one time. Each volunteer may now have a maximum of three holds at a time. We are reducing the number of allowable holds for two reasons: First and foremost is to share the wealth! We want new volunteers to be able to choose from a number of books that might interest them to keep them engaged while they're still learning the ropes. Secondly, we hope that reducing the number of holds and freeing up books in the checkout queue will reduce "poaching." Volunteers will have until Aug. 15 to finish up the holds already existing for them, and after Aug. 15 I will be checking the Check Out Queue daily and removing extra holds at random. Thank you all for understanding and, as always, for your hard work! Best, The Bookshare Volunteer Dept. 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.
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