[bksvol-discuss] Re: just submitted Broken
- From: "Amber" <amberanddottie@xxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 21:53:58 -0700
thanks I like Karin Slaughter. amber
----- Original Message -----
From: Denise Thompson
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2010 9:47 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] just submitted Broken
Ok. I just submitted Broken by Karin Slaughter. It's her latest book. It
hadn't shown up of the NY list yet and I wanted to read it. I know it'll be
replaced, but I figured there may be some other Slaughter fans out there who
want to read it in the meantime. It was tagged with an adult rating which I'd
like to discuss with the proofer it is happens to be someone on the list. For
those who may be intested, but are put off a little by Karin's graphic
descriptions of violence, this book steps back from that some. It's not nearly
as descriptive as Undone.
Denise
At 11:32 AM 8/16/2010, you wrote:
Volunteers,
A link to Jamie's helpful database of publishers that are not currently
submitting digital books to Bookshare has been added to the page on the Series
Captains Project.
While there is no foolproof way to predict when a new publisher may sign
with us or an existing publisher may do something that impacts a series we have
created tools such as these to adapt to the current rapid change and have
aligned volunteer instructions to consistently refer to these latest tools:
https://wiki.benetech.org/display/BSO/Series+Captains+List
Scott Rains
Benetech Fellow, Bookshare Volunteer Department
________________________________________
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Mike [mlsestak@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 8:54 AM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: PDF Files
I hadn't read Jim Fruchterman's letter (or much of any email since I've
been on vacation for the last week). It sounds like the major
publishers are unlikely to go back before 2000 in what they supply.
That sounds great as there are certainly many books 10 to 20 years old
that were and are still popular.
Misha
On 8/16/2010 8:25 AM, Cindy Ray wrote:
> I, personally, had not read the article though I received it. Thanks.
>
> Cindy Lou
>
> On Aug 16, 2010, at 9:01 AM, Scott Rains wrote:
>
>
>> Hi Cindy,
>>
>> Email is a tough medium to communicate in effectively. Thanks for
sticking it out!
>>
>> It sounds like the person who posed the question about PDF read the
letter from Jim Fruchterman and Betsy Beaumon to all volunteers published
here. I have reprinted below in case this is what you missed.
>>
>> You will notice that they do say that we will need volunteers in the
future to work on PDF files. Details of how that will be done have not been
determined yet.
>>
>> Scott Rains
>> Benetech Fellow, Bookshare Volunteer Department
>> ________________________________________
>>
>> Sent: Monday, August 09, 2010 11:32 AM
>> To: bks_announce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>
>> Dear Bookshare Volunteers,
>>
>> We wanted to give you some thoughts on the critical importance of
volunteers to Bookshare and its mission of getting everybody in the world with
a print disability access to the books they need for education, employment and
full inclusion in society. Although there's been a lot of change in Bookshare,
one thing that won't change is our need for volunteers that share our
dedication to that mission.
>>
>> Bookshare is the first library for people with print disabilities built
primarily by people with print disabilities (as well as book-lovers of all
types!). Our credo has been that if someone thought a book was worth scanning,
we thought it was worth sharing. We knew that people with disabilities had few
choices for accessible materials, and that scanning was a frustrating and slow
process.
>>
>> The volunteers built Bookshare into a potent force for equality: we've
revolutionized a field that was falling far short of meeting the goal of
equality when it comes to access to the printed word. And you've worked with
us to revolutionize the quality of our scanned books through meticulous
proofreading. Thanks to partnerships with over 60 publishers (especially a
handful of huge trade publishers), we have now been able to add thousands of
new titles to Bookshare electronically, delighting our users. Scott and Pavi
have shared with us, and our management team, some of the negative impacts this
has had on the morale of some of our volunteers. This is especially true when
a publisher-supplied version of a title displaces a volunteer-supplied version
of that same title.
>>
>> We know some people feel like that's not respectful of their volunteer
time, or that somehow their volunteer time was wasted. I hope you realize that
it has been the potent force of our volunteers creating Bookshare that has
brought so many modern publishers to the table, since we can tell them that we
already can scan all of their books, but providing it electronically will save
us time and the cost of buying a book, chopping it, scanning it and
proofreading it. The two things they want in return from us is to publicize
their social responsibility and replace our scanned versions with the version
they supply. The replacement issue is pretty much a standard requirement:
publishers want to be assured of the quality of their books we're distributing.
For the publishers it's built into the publishing culture, they do believe
their original product is superior and that this requirement implements their
contractual responsibilities to the authors, even though most readers wil
l
>>
> c
>
>> oncur that these are also not perfect. While there are exceptions, the
value of having 15-20,000 publisher supplied books over a year to our users is
incredibly high.
>>
>> These publisher partnerships are a terrific way to help advance our
mission, in terms of quality, quantity and uniquely, reach outside the United
States. But, they are not going to replace our need for volunteers. We have a
long way to go to deliver equal access to our users, and the market is going to
fail to fill these needs for the foreseeable future (even as we applaud the
recent accessibility work of Amazon, Apple and Google).
>>
>> Let me give you some ideas of the gaps that still exist:
>>
>> · Older books, specialty books, or simply books that aren't in the
top 5% of sales during the years since 2000. While it makes sense for us to
invest the effort of the amazing Robin Seaman, our Publisher Liaison, and our
engineering team to support a publisher who can give us 4,000 titles at once,
there aren't very many more of those big name publishers, but there are over
25,000 publishers.
>>
>> · Proofing PDF files. The bulk of publishers in the U.S., and
almost all publishers in the developing world, don't have the modern XML
capabilities of the major trade publishers. We are getting tons of PDF books
from these publishers, which need volunteer effort to convert into accessible
form.
>>
>> · The international challenge: new titles, new publishers, new
languages and new communities of Bookshare volunteers in other countries who
would benefit from mentoring. Americans have Bookshare, but the average person
with a print disability has nothing. We have so much more to do globally!
>>
>> · Proofing textbooks. The textbook industry is way behind the
technology curve and Carrie is sitting on stacks of hardcopy textbooks sent in
by teachers from around the country.
>>
>> · Metadata. Even if we have something, it only helps if the
person looking for it finds it. We can use significant volunteer help cleaning
up the information about our information.
>>
>> · Quality improvements. Improving quality on older, lower quality
books.
>>
>> · Image description. A huge challenge that our field has barely
begun to scratch the surface of. Our publisher contracts do allow us to add
them to the publisher-supplied books and we recently received a major award
over five years from the Department of Ed for the DIAGRAM Center, to research
and then develop technology to reduce the cost of doing image descriptions. The
centerpiece is developing tools for better and faster volunteer image
description. Stay tuned!
>>
>> The list goes on. While the need for volunteer work on major trade
books of the last five years is going down as these come in directly from
publishers, these other needs are acute.
>>
>> Our responsibility is to get better at communicating with volunteers
about our needs, and about what's going to be happening. Our technology
roadmap has numerous improvements planned around improving visibility on these
issues so that you can avoid doing those books that are likely to come in
directly in from the publisher. But, there are and will be thousands of
opportunities for volunteer tasks that are unlikely to ever be done any other
way than through volunteer efforts. We really want to create systems where
having volunteer work displaced quickly by publisher supplied content is a
rarity.
>>
>> We hope you'll find personally rewarding volunteer opportunities now,
and in the future, with Benetech. For those of you who aren't excited about
the changes, we understand. But, please be 100% clear: Bookshare volunteers
have been the primary force for revolutionary change in accessibility of books.
There are many thousands of students and adults with disabilities that have
far greater access to the printed word thanks to your past efforts. But, the
revolution is far from finished: we're serving 100,000 people today and there
are over 100,000,000 who need Bookshare on the planet. We hope you'll continue
to volunteer your time in helping realize the vision we all share of equal
access for everyone who needs it!
>>
>> Jim Fruchterman& Betsy Beaumon
>>
>> *******
>> From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Cindy Ray
[cindyray@xxxxxxxxx]
>> Sent: Saturday, August 14, 2010 6:22 PM
>> To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: PDF Files
>>
>> Oh, Arghhhh! There was apparently an article which I never read that
indicated that some publishers (small ones) would submit their books in pdf
format and that they would need to be proofread. The person who asked the
question had read this article. It is apparently an article on why volunteers
are still an integral part of Bookshare. So this person was wondering how one
would proofread such a file. I don't guess I completely understood the
question. Sorry to cause all this trouble, for I know pretty much the rules
governing volunteering at Bookshare; I just haven't had the time to do it much
lately.
>> Thanks for all your help folks. *smile*
>>
>> Cindy Lou
>>
>> On Aug 14, 2010, at 8:10 PM, Monica Willyard wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Cindy, we don't accept pdf files or files directly from a publisher.
>>> All books we submit are supposed to have paragraphs and page breaks.
>>> If a publisher wants to donate a book, it needs to go through
>>> Bookshare itself. We aren't supposed to submit e-books that we buy
>>> somewhere unless we get prior permission from Bookshare staff. From
>>> what I understand from Bookshare staff, e-books we buy somewhere
>>> don't have the same legal standing as print books.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Monica Willyard
>>> Visit my GoodReads book shelf at http://www.goodreads.com/plumlipstick
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>>>
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