[bksvol-discuss] Writing a letter
- From: juddysbuddy@xxxxxxxxxxxx
- To: "bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2006 18:48:57 -0500 (EST)
Hey you all, I bit the bullet and wrote a letter to www.tolerance.org to see
if they would be willing to donate their materials to Bookshare.
My lyrical skills are not the best in the world. But here is what I wrote.
Smile.
Hello there,
I am writing today on behalf of www.bookshare.org and the Benetech
initiative, to ask if Teaching Tolerance Would be willing to help us in our
endeavors.
A little backgrounds about the organization and me. I am currently a
graduate student at Western Michigan University in the Blindness and Low
Vision Studies department. I am working on a master's degree in
Rehabilitation Teaching, which is basically teaching adults who have lost
their vision how to live without vision. Before that, I was an elementary
school teacher and Special Educator for students with visual impairments. I
first learned about Teaching Tolerance when I was getting my teaching degree
from Kutztown University. A professor there Deb Johnson brought in your
materials to one of our classes and I was excited to find materials like
these available. I think you all are doing a wonderful job and to keep up
what you are doing. Tolerance and understanding are valuable things to
strive for and something that can be accomplished one person at a time. I
was excited to see that Teaching Tolerance focuses on all aspects of
diversity whether it is gender, cultural, or disability issues. I have a
visual impairment. I cannot read regular print, and must depend on recorded
cassettes, Braille, or scanned materials for my reading materials. I also
travel with a golden retriever guide dog. I have experienced the bullying
and other hatred that comes from intolerance first hand and I have helped my
students through bullying situations.
I am writing today to ask, if Teaching Tolerance would be willing to help
expand tolerance and diversity and access even farther to your materials. I
am a volunteer for a website called "Bookshare.org" This website, takes
printed materials, books, magazines, and the like and turns them into
accessible formatted materials for people who can not read standard printed
materials. Their main goal is to provide equal access to the printed word
in a format that can be read by those who can't see, cannot understand what
they read or can't physically handle a printed book. Volunteers, who scan
each individual book, edit them for quality and share them to the site run
Bookshare. There is an amendment in the copyright law that allows bookshare
to do this valuable work. Members of the site must 1. Be a U.S. citizen, 2.
Have a print disability and 3 contribute to the maintenance of the site
through an annual membership fee. Many efforts are taken to protect the
authors and copyright holders of all of the work on the site, and there are
safeguards in place to prevent copying of material or sharing with
unauthorized users. The books are produced in electronic Braille and Daisy
formatted files that are read using special software. We have over three
thousand members and are currently working towards a goal of 30,000 books by
January 2007. Which is a small amount of the printed work available to the
general public but more than we had before. Our members comprise a wide
every aspect of society, from homemakers to lawyers, teachers, teens, kids,
and retired persons, and people who just want to read for pleasure.
Would you be willing to share your materials for our site, so that teachers
and parents can read and share your valuable messages with their students
and children, and so our teens and kids will have access to the valuable
lessons that your organization strives to share day after day? We can
either use electronic files of your materials or just the materials
themselves. The electronic files are preferred though as they usually do
not scanning or "OCR" errors that are added when you scan a book. Your
partnership in sharing what Teaching Tolerance has to offer will add a new
and exciting dynamic to Bookshare and offer our readers valuable
information, valuable tools and lessons on working together to make a better
world.
If you would like to learn more about Bookshare or to see how we can work
with publishers and authors, and how we can protect your work from copyright
infringement, please visit...
http://www.bookshare.org/web/SupportAuthorsPublishers.html
Thank you for your time and attention.
Sincerely,
Shelley L. Rhodes, CTVI
Shelley.l.rhodes@xxxxxxxxx
Shelley L. Rhodes B.S. Ed, CTVI
and Judson, guiding golden
juddysbuddy@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Guide Dogs For the Blind Inc.
Graduate Alumni Association Board
www.guidedogs.com
Dog ownership is like a rainbow.
Puppies are the joy at one end.
Old dogs are the treasure at the other.
Carolyn Alexander
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