I never realized that Bookshare once offered the Internet Archive as a source
for content. It is regrettable if this source can no longer be accessed as the
IA has an amazingly large collection of material but offers a very unintuitive
interface. I have also found books on that site that weren't available in an
accessible format everywhere else.
Someone on another list had mentioned that his Bookport Plus player used to
have an option to download content from the Internet Archive but that it, too,
stopped working. That suggests that the API may have broken down at some point
meaning that third party sites like Bookshare aren't able to access it. Of
course, that's just a possibility and I haven't confirmed this.
I don't want to veer too much off course as I know this list is meant to
discuss Bookshare and not other services. What I will say is that if the
Internet Archive's Daisy download fails as it does for me you can try choosing
to borrow the book as an encrypted PDF file which can then be opened in Adobe
Digital Editions.<https://www.adobe.com/solutions/ebook/digital-editions.html>
David Goldfield,
Blindness Assistive Technology Specialist
NVDA Certified, 2019
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www.DavidGoldfield.org
-----Original Message-----
From: bookshare-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<bookshare-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Joshua Hendrickson
Sent: Thursday, February 3, 2022 9:19 AM
To: bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bookshare-discuss] Re: Internet Archive and Bookshare
I'd recommend calling bookshare directly. I haven't had much to do with the
daisy books on archive.org. I personally couldn't find anything from them I
wanted. However, it is a shame that that collection is gone. I know they had
loads of books.
On 2/3/22, Andy Shields <ashields2@xxxxxxx<mailto:ashields2@xxxxxxx>> wrote:
Good morning,
"The Archive" is still listed as an option under "Advanced Search." So
I've looked for specific authors whose books have been there, and
then, specific titles by those authors. All attempts refer me back to
"Advanced Search"
without results.
I don't know what format options Bookshare had in place with the
Archive in the past. I do know that their large number of DAISY books
are now either gone or inaccessible. Attempts to download them from
their own website consistently produce the message "Encryption
failed", and a person I contacted at Internet Archive two years ago
said that "the process was broken."
So: are titles from the Archive still accessible through Bookshare in
some way, and if so, how? In spite of their inconsistent quality and
scanning errors, they had a lot of books that you couldn't find
anywhere else in accessible formats, and it really is a shame if they're all
gone for good.
If Archive titles aren't available, why is the option still shown
under Advanced Search? I'm not annoyed, just bemused. I think I may
have sent this question to the list before, but got no response.
Thanks for whatever help someone can give me, especially some of you
who have a close working relationship with Bookshare.
Andy
