[bksvol-discuss] Re: Tips For Getting Your Book Wishes Filled
- From: "Evan Reese" <mentat1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2007 15:25:01 -0700
You definitely want to leave those page numbers!
Yes, Bookshare does have a tool for removing the headers, if they are
consistent. It helps the removal process to try and make them consistent if
you don't want to remove them yourself. This header removal takes place
after validation. But sometimes I have noticed and heard of books still
getting into the collection with at least some of their headers still
intact. Your book wouldn't be rejected for that reason.
Evan
----- Original Message -----
From: Jamie Pauls
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Saturday, September 08, 2007 2:37 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Tips For Getting Your Book Wishes Filled
If there are running headers in a book with page numbers on the same line,
should the page numbers be left when the header text is removed? If I have
validated a book without removing headers, am I correct that Bookshare has a
tool that will do this thereby not causing my otherwise good validation to
be rejected? Thanks.
----- Original Message -----
From: Monica Willyard
To: Bookshare Volunteers ; Bookshare Discuss
Sent: Saturday, September 08, 2007 3:30 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Tips For Getting Your Book Wishes Filled
Hi, everyone. If you've got some requests for books you'd love to read
that aren't in the Bookshare collection, I'd like to share some tips with
you that could help you get your wishes filled. Some will seem obvious to
you while others may not have even crossed your mind. I hope you'll find an
idea here that helps you get some of your book wishes filled.
1. When you post your request, make sure you give both the title and the
author. Please make sure you spell the author's name correctly since it's
what our volunteers use to search for books in library catalogs or on
Amazon.
2. Get people interested in your book. Include a description of the
book. Paste it from Amazon, describe it yourself, or paste in a review of
the book from somewhere. In other words, get someone motivated to scan the
book because it sounds good. Posting a title and author is nice, and yet it
doesn't give our submitters much to go on to see if they'd like working on
the book. At the end of the day, volunteers are people, and people are more
willing to take action when they like the idea.
3. Offer to edit/validate the book when it's scanned. Doing this lets
submitters know that their work won't just sit around in validation limbo
for ages. If you say you'll edit the book, submitters will know that you'll
take care of stripping headers. I'd scan a lot more wishes if I wasn't
responsible for doing header stripping before submitting. As it is, you kind
of have to sell me on a book before I'll scan it because I know I'll have to
do the headers. It's a necessary chore with my own books. I would dread
doing it on a book I don't even want to read.
4. If you can do so, offer to buy a used or new copy of a book if
someone will scan it. While some volunteers are able to get to a library,
many others aren't. I know that a lot of submitters have bought books that
have been requested. If you can't afford to buy the books, please don't let
that prevent you from asking for books. Just be aware that offering to buy
books to be scanned is one way to help you get books into the collection.
5. Ok, I know this is really obvious, and yet I don't see it done often.
When someone scans one of your book requests, say "thank you" in in private
mail or on the list. Most of us want to know if anyone reads the books we
scan. Since we can't see how many times a book is downloaded, we have no way
of knowing if our book has been read at all. A little recognition can make
the job of scanning book requests rewarding for the person doing the scan
and will make it more likely that the submitter will work on book requests
in the future.
I hope you find some of these ideas useful. I'm not the ultimate
authority on volunteering. What do you think about these tips? Do you have
other ideas to add to this list?
Monica Willyard
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